Personal and Scientific News. 129 
Big Springs of the Edwards Plateau ;” by John Q. Prather on 
“The Austin Chalk Underlying Waco,” and by Prof. Harring- 
ton on “The Fertilizing Value of the Brazos River Flood 
Waters.” The president of the Academy is J. C. Nagle, Col- 
lege Station. 
DiAMonps IN New SoutH Wages. According to the re- 
port of E. F. Pittman, government geologist of New South 
Wales, the diamonds found at Ruby hill are from a rock re- 
sembling that of the Kimberley pipes in Seuth Africa; 1. e. 
in a volcanic breccia or agglomerate consisting of angular 
and sub-angular fragments of claystone, felsyte, basalt, eclo- 
gyte, etc., with calcite, garnet, chrome diopside, ete. This oc- 
curs in a Tertiary volcanic vent formed at a point of weakness 
in the older rocks, viz.: at the actual junction of an old intru- 
sive quartz-felsyte with the Carboniferous sediments. But 
few diamonds have as yet been found, but since the geological 
and mineralogical accompaniments are nearly identical with 
those at Kimberley, it is expected that ultimately important 
diamond-bearing localities will be discovered. 
Tue Carnecie InstirutTion. The chief aims sought in 
the establishment of the Carnegie institution aré as follows: 
First—To increase the efficiency of the universities and 
other institutions of learning throughout the country by util- 
izing and adding to their existing facilities, and by aiding 
teachers in the various institutions for experimental and other 
work in these institutions as far as may be advisable. 
Second—To discover the exceptional man in every depart- 
ment of study, whenever and wherever found, and enable him 
by financial aid to make the work for which he seems specially 
designed his life work. 
Third—To promote original research, paying great atten- 
tion thereto, as being one of the chief purposes of this institu- 
tion. 
Fourth—To increase facilities for higher education. 
Fifth—To enable such students as may find Washington 
the best point for their special studies to avail themselves of 
such advantages as may be open to them in the museums, 
libraries, laboratories, observatory, meteorological, piscicul- 
tural, and forestry school, and kindred institutions of the sev- 
eral departments of the government. 
_ Sixth—To ensure the prompt publication and distribution 
of the results of scientific investigation, a field considered to 
be highly important. 
These and kindred objects Mr. Carnegie holds may be at- 
tained by providing the necessary apparatus, by employing 
able teachers from the various institutions in Washington and 
elsewhere and by enabling men fitted for special work to «e- 
yote themselves to it, through salaried fellowships or scholar- 
