During its honors meeting in Washington, D.C. last spring, the American Geophysical Union awarded Merle A. Tuve its 25th William Bowie Medal for outstanding contributions and unselfish cooperation in geophysical research. Dr. Tuve has been a staff member of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution for over thirty‐five years and since 1946 has served as the Department's director. During World War II, he was attached to the Office of Scientific Research and Development and was awarded a Presidential Medal of Merit for his work in developing the proximity fuse. His present research activities include seismic‐data analysis of the earth's crust, development of image tubes for large telescopes, and studies of hydrogen gas clouds by radio‐astronomy techniques. In addition to his long service with the Carnegie Institution, Dr. Tuve has been a member of the US National Commission for UNESCO, the Board of Scientific Consultants of the Sloan Kettering Institute, and, since 1960, chairman of the Geophysics Research Board. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Geophysical Union.