PRINCETON

 October 27, 1746: Scottish Presbyterian pastor and theologian William Tennant obtains a charter for the College of New Jersey, which is now Princeton. He had founded the school in 1726 as a seminary to train his sons and others for ministry. Presidents of the college later included Aaron Burr, Jonathan Edwards, and Reverend John Witherspoon, who led the school to national prominence (see issue 77: Jonathan Edwards).

CRYSTALS GROW FAST

 Pegmatite crystals grow at fast pace, study says

Pegmatite crystals can grow within days or hours -- much more quickly than previously thought, say Rice University scientists who studied crystals from a pegmatite mine in Southern California and created a formula for converting chemical evaluations into growth estimates. "While we didn't expect it to be that fast, we couldn't come up with a reason why it wasn't plausible," says Patrick Phelps, an author of the study published in Nature Communications.

 Full Story: United Press International (10/7)

 There goes another idea about the earth being millions of years old!