I’m having a great time up here in Wyoming. We’ve seen bison, pronghorn, elk, mule deer and many, many kinds of birds in addition to yesterday’s moose.
I’m a little too tired to write anything but I am capable of posting one of the slides taken by Dr. Davies on campus. It isn’t dated (although I’d guess late ’50s based on nothing much) and I’m not sure where he was standing when he took it:
Any thoughts?
Bonus: 
I’m guessing that this photo was taken from near the front of what’s now Jones College. Might the two saplings in the old photo be those in the middle of this view of Jones http://goo.gl/maps/LY1XC ?
The double row of more-mature trees could be those visible in the top-right portion of the 1947-8 aerials of the March 15, 2011 Rice History Corner post (http://ricehistorycorner.com/2011/03/15/two-aerial-views-from-1947-48/), which flank a road that goes roughly E-W from the Main Street entrance. From Dr. Davies’ viewpoint, those trees would obscure some of the rear of the Abercrombie lab.
You can also see a row of two of the small shrubs that remained after cultivation mentioned in the 2011 post (see its top photo) ceased. The brick building visible in the left-side distance could be the NE entrance to the chemistry building.
That’s certainly the right neighborhood. The tile roof dead ahead is Abercrombie. I guess the photo to have been taken very near to, or within, the original Jones North wing (the middle “east-west” wing in the Google map view) based on the view angles of the sides of the Campanile.
I just noticed the Google aerial had a “street view” vignette taken on nearly the same line as the Davies photo. I zoomed in once from the URL below to have good view.
https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7216893,-95.3971626,3a,37.5y,274.56h,90t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sQQM3FcJqJYTKfKn79Q8OTA!2e0!3e5?hl=en
However, Davies was either a lot closer closer than roughly the point that the original Jones North has been joined to what originally was Jones Commons OR he used a longer focal length lens than Google used from somewhat further back.
Nice find! You can adjust the zoom and angle of view to come close to the old photo’s point of view (for example: http://goo.gl/maps/GneUN), but I couldn’t get both trees in the same position as Dr. Davies’ photo.