OBITUARY. 



VALENTINE BALL, C.B., LL.D., F.R.S. 

 Born July 14, 1843. Died June 15, 1895. 



THE untimely death of the Director of the Science and Art Museum, 

 Dublin, removes one of the leading men of science of that city. 

 Born in Dublin, the second son of Dr. Robert Ball an enthusiastic 

 naturalist and superintendent of the University Museum, and the 

 younger brother of Robert Ball, now the well-known astronomer, 

 Valentine Ball was brought up amid surroundings well calculated to 

 foster a love of Nature. He was educated at Chester, Rathmines, 

 and Trinity College, Dublin, holding during his university course a 

 clerkship in the Chancery Office. In 1864 he resigned this post to 

 take up far more congenial work on the staff of the Geological 

 Survey of India. During his service in the East, he paid special 

 attention to the economic aspects of his science, and enriched the 

 memoirs of the Survey by many valuable papers on the building- 

 stones, coal-fields, minerals, gold-bearing rocks, and gems of the 

 country. The main results of his labours in this field will be found 

 in the " Manual of the Geology of India, Part III., Economic 

 Geology," 1881. His geological work, however, by no means absorbed 

 his whole attention ; he took advantage of the opportunities offered 

 by his journeys to study the plant and bird-life of the country, and to 

 accumulate notes on the less-known native races of men ; such 

 observations were summarised in his "Jungle Life in India." 



In 1881, Ball returned to Dublin to succeed Rev. S. Haughton, 

 as Professor of Geology and Mineralogy in the University. He held 

 the chair for only two years, being appointed, on the death of Dr. 

 Steele, in 1883, Director of the Science and Art Museum. During 

 the ensuing twelve 5-ears he laboured unremittingly for the develop- 

 ment of the institution over which he was placed. Museum admin- 

 istration was highly congenial to his tastes, and he threw himself 

 into the work with the greatest enthusiasm. The Dublin Museum 

 has grown largely under his rule, and the story of its progress was 

 given to readers of Natural Science, in July last year, in his 

 presidential address to the Museums Association, where the accumu- 

 lation of the various collections, the erection and opening of the new 

 building for the art division, and other recent developments were 

 described at length. To the geological and mineralogical specimens 

 under his care, he naturally devoted special attention. In 1884, Ball 

 attended the Montreal meeting of the British Association, and took 



