OUtuary — John Allen Brown. 527 



before taking tlie final step that would have completed his adhesion 

 to the Jesuits. To his intimate friends he would now and then 

 disclose an unexpected breadth of view in religious questions. 

 As years passed, the longing for mental freedom grew ever 

 stronger, until at last it overmastered all the traditions and 

 associations of a lifetime, and he finally separated himself from 

 the Church of Eome. Had he contented himself with the anliounce- 

 ment of this change of opinion, the outcry against his apostasy 

 in such a country as Belgium would doubtless in any case have 

 been loud and long. But he marked his secession from the 

 clerical order by marrying — an act which could not but intensify the 

 persecution. Many bitter and unworthy reproaches were heaped 

 upon him, and many old friends now shunned him. A man of his 

 gentle and kindly nature must have keenly felt the misrepresentation 

 to which he was subjected. To those who still held to his 

 friendship, he said that he had done what after long meditation 

 he believed to be right, and that the consciousness of his rectitude 

 of aim supported him in the trial. But the hand of death was 

 already upon him. An insidious and fatal disease, of which many 

 years ago he had premonitions and for which he had undergone 

 several operations, now spread through his body and rapidly brought 

 his life to a close on the 9th July, 1903, at Brussels. 



Eenard held for many years a professorship in the University of 

 Louvain and a Conservatorship in the Eoyal Museum of Natural 

 History at Brussels. These appointments he vacated when he 

 succeeded to the chair of geology in the University of Ghent, which 

 he retained up to the time of his death. The members of the 

 Geologists' Association were greatly indebted to Professor Eenard 

 for much kindness and valuable assistance on the occasion of their 

 visit to the Ardennes in August, 1885. The value of his scientific 

 work was recognized in this country by the Geological Society 

 when it awarded to him the Bigsby Medal in 1885, and by the 

 Eoyal Society of Edinburgh when it elected him into the select 

 number of its honorary Fellows. From his frequent visits to this 

 country he learnt to speak English fairly well, while his early 

 training in Germany gave him fluency in the language of that 

 country. His genial face, beaming with good-nature, will long 

 be missed at the meetings of the British Association, which he 

 frequently attended. A. G. 



JOHN ALLEN BROWN, J. P., F.G.S., F.R.G.S. 



Born September 3, 1831. Died September 24, 1903. 



By the death of Mr. John Allen Brown, an earnest student of 

 geology, and more especially of the latter post-Pliocene deposits 

 of the Thames Valley, has been i-emoved from our midst. 



He was born in London 3rd September, 1831, succeeded his 

 father^ as diamond merchant, and some forty years ago settled in 



1 John Browu (1797-1861), one of the founders of the Ethnological Society, took 

 a keen interest in geographical, especially Arctic, exploration, making large collections 

 in illustration thereof. He was conspicuous as an advocate of expeditions in search 

 (.)f Sir J. Franklin, and defined the area which that explorer was ultimately found to 

 have reached, but was not listened to at the time. 



