Abstract
PROF. S. J. SHAND has been appointed to fill the Newberry chair of geology at Columbia University. Shand, a graduate of the Universities of St. Andrews and Münster, spent a short time at the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh, and then for twenty-five years was professor of geology at Stellenbosch. In 1937 he became professor of petrology in Columbia. He has devoted much attention to the occurrence and origin of the alkali rocks. He mapped masses of nepheline-bearing rocks in Sutherlandshire and the Bushveld, describing them in a series of masterly papers. As early as 1913 he was considering the thorny problems of the classification of eruptive rocks, and has recently elaborated one. In this the role of physical chemistry in helping to choose the diagnostic features of a rock is emphasized, and the result is practical and useful. A philosophical outlook permeates all he writes, and he has proved himself one of the most stimulating of living petrologists. Many geologists and others will be happy to learn of his promotion, and know he is a worthy successor to J. F. Kemp, C. P. Berkey and Douglas Johnson.
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Geology at Columbia University: Prof. S. J. Shand. Nature 155, 721 (1945). https://doi.org/10.1038/155721c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/155721c0