OBITUARY NOTICES OF MEMBERS DECEASED. 



AMOS PEASLEE BROWN. 

 {Read January 4, igiS.) 



As we look over the roll of men who have devoted their lives 

 to any special line of research, we find represented there a wide 

 range of character and temperament. Some have courted publicity, 

 others from the sheer force of their personality, or from the nature 

 of their achievements, have been constantly in the public eye, while: 

 others again, averse to notoriety, have quietly and unostentatiously- 

 pursued their studies, content with the acquirement of knowledge 

 for its own sake, and from excessive modesty, refraining from pub- 

 lishing to the world much that would have been widely welcomed. 

 This latter group never receive the recognition to which their qual- 

 ifications would entitle them, and their true worth is known only 

 to the few to whom is given the privilege of close association with 

 them. To this class belonged the subject of the present sketch — • 

 well known, it is true, as a geologist, a mineralogist, and a teacher, 

 but possessed of a breadth of knowledge little suspected, except by 

 those few who knew him in the intimacy of close friendship, and 

 which is only partially reflected in the publications which he has 

 given to the world. 



Amos Peaslee Brown was born in Germantown, Philadelphia, 

 on December 3, 1864, the son of Amos Peaslee and Frances Brown 

 and the fourth child of a family of seven sons and two daughters. 

 His parents were cousins, his paternal grandfather, also Amos 

 Peaslee, had settled in Maryland, where he was engaged in agricul- 

 ture, while his grandfather on his mother's side, Jeremiah Brown, 

 with two other brothers, Moses Brown and David S. Brown, had 

 established themselves in Philadelphia as dry-goods commission 

 merchants, founding one of the first business houses of this sort in 

 the city. The ancestor of the family in America was Henry Brown, 



vi 



