OBITUARY. 



Died on the 30th of March, 1857, at his house in Granby-row, Dublin, 

 Robert Ball, LL.D., one of the Editors of this Journal. Doctor Ball 

 was Secretary to the Queen's University, and Examiner to the Board of 

 Commissioners of Civil Services for Ireland. The relation in which he 

 stood to the studies of Zoology and the kindred sciences is but imperfectly 

 suggested by his titles in connexion with the principal public scientific 

 bodies in Dublin, where he resided. He was Treasurer of the Royal Irish 

 Academy of Science ; Secretary to the Royal Zoological Society ; Director 

 of the University Museum, and President of the University Zoological and 

 Botanical Association, in Trinity College ; Vice-President of the Geological 

 Society ; Member of Council of the Royal Dublin Society, the Statistical 

 Society, etc. And these were not honours sought by him for the orna- 

 ment of a name, but offices imposed upon him by the public appreciation 

 of his superior fitness, and duties which he fulfilled with the energy, discre- 

 tion, unselfish kindliness and strong sense of honour, which were so 

 eminently characteristic of him through life, and in all its relations. The 

 Royal Irish Academy, with other scientific societies, and not those only 

 with which he was directly connected, have testified to the blank he has 

 left, by adjourning, without entering on any scientific proceedings, at their 

 meetings next after his decease. Doctor Ball was President Elect of the 

 Section of Zoology and Botany of the British Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science, in their meeting of 1857, when he was taken away in 

 the vigour of life, and the full career of social usefulness. Of the colleague 

 and the friend, our own more especial loss, we cannot trust ourselves to 

 speak now particularly. Eds. N. H. R. 



