JACOB B. BROWN. 53 



coast of Japan when the great typhoon of 1874 took place, 

 witnessing vessels swept ashore and enormous destruction of 

 life and shipping. 



After two and a half years of this life in the East, having 

 interests demanding his return to Europe, he resigned his 

 berth in the navy, and took passage on a French vessel from 

 Hong Kong to Marseilles. The voyage carried him south 

 through the Straits of Malacca to Ceylon, and then through 

 the Indian Ocean to Aden and up the Red Sea to Suez, where 

 the canal had been recently finished. It was now some six 

 years since he had left the Reviera and the sparkling shores of 

 the Mediterranean ; he felt a keen delight to be once more 

 upon her waters, and but a few days from the country he 

 looked upon as home. The interval had taken him around 

 the world, affording him observation of the rushing life of the 

 California towns, the social side of New York and Newport, 

 and a sojourn in China and Japan — as yet but slightly 

 influenced by Western civilization. Probably in no one 

 decade of the last century could a keen and thoughtful trav- 

 eler have gained more from a leisurely encircling of the globe 

 than in the years from 1870 to 1880. 



After some time passed in Italy and Russia, where rela- 

 tives were living, Mr. Brown decided that his life could be 

 better and more usefully passed in his native country. The 

 early ties and associations had passed away, nothing bound 

 him to Italy, and he felt more of attraction to Newport, where 

 his mother's family had lived for many generations, than to 

 any other spot. 



Until 1886 he lived in that city, occupying himself with 

 researches in astronomy and mathematics, and with literary 

 study and compilation. Always fond of the sea, he spent 

 much time, summer and winter, on the water, generally in his 

 rowboat "Snooks." Very active and wiry, and a good 

 swordsman in his younger days, he would often pull twenty 

 miles through a rough sea, and was a favorite with the ancient 

 tars of the town, with whom he passed many genial hours in 



