528 Obituary — John Allen Broivn. 



Ealing. From liis father he inherited a taste for geographical 

 research, and he joined the Eoyal Geographical Society in 1861 ; 

 but incited by the investigations made by General Pitt-Rivers (then 

 Colonel Lane Fox) in 1869, the results of which were published in 

 1872,^ he turned his attention to the drift deposits in north-west 

 Middlesex, for which the numerous excavations for building purposes 

 then beginning in Ealing afforded the requisite material.^ His 

 earliest scientific papers were, however, on general subjects and 

 given before the Ealing Microscopical and Natural History Society, of 

 which he was one of the founders and its president from 1882-83. 



In 1883 he laid before the members of the Geologists' Association, 

 both on an excursion and in a paper read to that body, the evidences 

 that appeai'ed to him indicative of ice-action on the summit of the 

 high ground to the north of Ealing. To this subject he frequently 

 recurred in subsequent papers. 



A little later he discovered that patches of gravel were found at 

 intervals up to the top of Castlebar Hill, a situation in which they 

 had not then been mapped by the Geological Survey. 



Primeval Man and his Implements was the subject, however, to 

 which he was most devoted, and from 1885, when he read his paper 

 on " The Earliest Men of Ealing " to the local Society, his scientific 

 publications were almost exclusively confined to that theme. 



In a series of communications to various Societies during the next 

 two years he demonstrated the existence of a " Paleeolithic floor " in 

 the neighbourhood of Ealing and Acton, comparable to the ones 

 previously described for north-east London by Mr. Worthington 

 G. Smith and Mr. Greenhill. The substance of these papers was 

 gathered together and extended to form his work " Palgeolithic Man 

 in N.W. Middlesex," issued in 1887.- 



He continued to work at this line of research for the rest of his 

 life, and his latest paper, read before the Ealing Natural Science 

 Society in 1902, was on " Eecent discoveries in relation to 

 Prehistoric Man in Ealing." 



He passed quietly away at his Ealing home on 24th September, 

 1903, after a long and painful illness. 



His portrait in oils hangs in the Eeading-room of the Public 

 Library at Ealing, in the establishment of which he took a leading 

 part, becoming first Chairman of the Committee. 



Mr. Brown became a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1886, 

 and was made a Justice of the Peace in 1894. 



His private collection of geological objects was extensive, but the 

 assemblage of implements which he brought together is remarkabl}' 

 fine, and it is to be hoped that this will not be allowed to melt 

 away, as collections so often do when the loving hand of the owner 

 is removed and they are not transferred, as they always should be, 

 to the safe keeping of some public body. 



^ ^ B. B. W. 



1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. xxviii. 



~ His other chief work "The Chronicles of Greeuford Parva" is of great 

 topographical interest, but is not connected with geology. 



