15 DECEMBER 1883, Page 3

Professor Sylvester is selected to succeed the late Professor Henry

Smith as Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford. Professor Sylvester is,—with perhaps some question as to Pro- fessor Cayley,—the most brilliant and original mathematician of his time. Nor has the fertility of his genius, it is said, diminished with age, though he is believed to be already seventy. He leaves the John Hopkins University at Baltimore, where his genius has been greatly valued and has borne large fruit, at Christmas, and will, we suppose, assume his new duties at Oxford early in 1884. Oxford has chosen outside her own. University, and has indisputably made a brilliant choice.