ZOOLOGICAL AND BOTANICAL ASSOCIATION. 37 



ants at its meetings. He was a useful aid in obtaining for the Society 

 the use of the rooms which for many years it occupied in the Custom- 

 House, Dublin, when its own funds were not sufficiently flourishing to 

 enable it to rent rooms for its own occupation. Subsequently he was 

 one of the principal supporters, if not the originator, of the proposition 

 which was afterwards carried out, that the Society should offer its col- 

 lection to the University of Dublin, which had for some years previously 

 been taking a most praiseworthy interest in the Natural Sciences. As 

 a fellow- worker with him for many years, I can testify to the untiring 

 zeal with which he entered into every plan for the advancement of the 

 Society, and to the truly disinterested and active aid he afforded in 

 carrying them out. During the many years I was Secretary, and after- 

 wards President, of the Society, Ball was one of the great supporters of 

 the institution, and through good report and evil report he never failed 

 in his confidence in its final success, or wavered in his steady adhesion 

 to its ranks. The Journal of the Society contains a few contributions 

 by him, bearing principally on the light thrown on geological questions 

 by natural history research among living animals ; and it was but a 

 just and proper acknowledgment of these long- continued services which 

 the Society gave expression to in his election to the Chair." 



" In the internal management of the Society his friendly and social 

 intercourse with most of the members was of great avail. It was chiefly 

 by his persuasion that the Council adopted the plan of meeting at break- 

 fast, a plan attended with the most beneficial results, and still continued 

 with great success. Dr. Ball's purely geological work was not much ; 

 but on this, as on every other subject with which he was acquainted, 

 we all felt, and acted on the feeling, that we should in no case- apply to 

 him without being certain of obtaining from him every information that 

 he himself possessed : and this was always given with the most perfect 

 frankness and the most friendly earnestness." 



The Geological Society of Dublin was founded in 1831 ; the Natural 

 History Society seven years afterwards. Of the latter I find no mention 

 in any of Dr. Ball's papers that came into my hands ; and for the fol- 

 lowing particulars referring to it I am indebted to the kindness of its 

 excellent Honorary Secretary, William Andrews, Esq. This gentleman 

 informs me, that the first meeting of the Dublin Natural History Society 

 was held on the 19th March, 1838. At its third meeting, in April of 

 the same year, Dr. Ball and W. Thompson, Esq., were elected Honorary 



