20 BROWN. 



At the close of the year 1810, on the death of his learned and 

 intimate friend Dryander, Mr. Brown succeeded to the office of 

 Librarian to Sir Joseph Banks, who (on his death in 1820) bequeathed 

 to him for life the use and enjoyment of his library and collections. 

 These were subsequently, with Mr. Brown's consent, and in con- 

 formity with the provisions of Sir Joseph's will, transferred, in 1827, 

 to the British Museum; and from this latter date, until his death, 

 he continued to fill the office of Keeper of tin- Botanical Collections 

 in the National establishment. In 1849 Mr. Brown was elected 

 President of the Linnean Society, of which, soon after the death of 

 Sir Joseph Banks, he had resigned the Librarianship, and had become 

 a fellow. 



In 1811 he had been made a fellow of the Royal Society; and in 

 1839 received its highest honour in the Copley medal, awarded to 

 him " for his discoveries during a series of years on the subject of 

 vegetable impregnation." In the meantime, honours and titles 

 flowed in upon him from all quarters. In 1832 the University of 

 Oxford conferred on him, in conjunction with Dalton, Faraday, and 

 Brewster, the honorary degree of D.C.L. ; and, in the succeeding 

 year, he was elected one of the eight foreign associates of the 

 Academy of Sciences of the Institute of France, his name being 

 selected from a list, including those of nine other savans of world- 

 wide reputation, nearly every one of whom has since been elected 

 to the same distinguished honour. During the administration of 

 Sir Robert Peel, he received, in recognition of his great eminence in 

 botanical science, a pension on the Civil List of 200/. per annum, 

 and shortly afterwards the King of Prussia decorated him with the 

 cross of the highest Prussian Civil Order ' Pour le Me rite.' 



Of Mr. Brown's later publications the most important are, his 

 'Botanical Appendix to Captain Bart's Expedition into Central 

 Australia,' published in 1849 ; and his Memoir ' On Triplosporite, an 

 undescribed Fossil Fruit,' published in the Linnean Transactions for 

 1851. The pervading and distinguishing character of all these 

 writings, is to be found in the combination of the minutes! accuracy 

 of detail with the most comprehensive gcnerali/ation; and no theory 

 is propounded which does not rest for its foundation on the most 

 circumspect investigation of all attainable facts. Among the most 

 important anatomical and physiological subjects of which they 

 treat, particular mention is due to the discovery of the nucleus of 

 the vegetable cell, the development of the stamina, together with 

 the mode of fecundation in Asclepiadeu- and ( )rchi<leo> ; the develop- 

 ment of the pollen and of the ovulum in Phcenogamous plants, and 

 the bearing of these facts upon the general subject of impregnation ; 

 also the origin and development of the spores of mosses; and the 



discovery of the peculiar motions which take place in the "active 



molecules" of matter when seen suspended in a lluid under I he 

 microscope. Of structural investigations, the most important are 

 those which establish the relation of the llower to the axis from 



