20 William Keith Brooks 



grown, and it continues still to be the best treatise on 

 these subjects. 



The pressure of public sentiment in favor of a correct 

 and final solution of the oyster problem for Maryland, 

 along substantially the lines suggested by Dr. Brooks, 

 grew stronger and stronger, year by year, and in 1906 

 Dr. Brooks had the satisfaction of seeing the Hainan 

 Oyster Culture Law enacted. No one rejoiced more than 

 Dr. Brooks when the State took this first step toward cre- 

 ating the conditions under which it may be possible, 

 finally, to realize a part at least of the vision he had seen 

 of the vast potential resources of the Chesapeake. 



PROFESSOR WILLIAM HAND BROWNE 



Dr. Browne, who could not be present at the memorial 

 meeting on account of the grave illness of a member of 

 his family, has written the following appreciation of his 

 close friend, Dr. Brooks : 



I regret deeply that an imperative duty will prevent 

 my attending the meeting to commemorate our departed 

 colleague. 



As Dr. Brooks and myself usually travelled to and from 

 the city by the same train, we naturally had much talk 

 together ; and I was constantly struck by the wide extent 

 of his information, and the clearness of his thought on 

 every subject that arose. Were it an obscure passage in 

 Shakespeare, a novel of Dickens or Thackeray, the Ber- 

 keleian philosophy, or an item in the morning paper, he 

 had always something to the point, and often something 

 illuminating, to say about it. Of many pregnant remarks 

 which took hold of my memory, I will repeat but one. The 

 subject of the supernatural having been broached, Dr. 

 Brooks said : "The term 'supernatural' is due to a mis- 

 conception of nature. Nature is everything that is." 



