382 Obituary— Prof. ValenUne Ball, C.B. 



VALENTINE BALL, C.B., M.A., AND LL.D. (DUBLIN), 



F.R.S., F.G.S., M.R.I.A, 



BoKN July 14th, 184:3. Died June 15th, 1895. 



Few men of science were more widely known or more cordially 

 esteemed than Dr. Valentine Ball, the distinguished Director of 

 the Dublin Museum of Science and Art, whose premature loss we 

 have to deplore. 



Yalentine Ball was boi'n in Dublin July lith, 1843, and was 

 the second son of the well-known Naturalist, Robert Ball, LL.D., 

 who died in 1857. He was educated at Dr. Brindley's, Chester, 

 subsequently at Dr. Henry's and Dr. Benson's private schools in 

 Dublin, and at Trinity College, Dublin. He graduated in the 

 University of Dublin, B.A., 1864; M.A., 1872; LL.D. {honoris 

 cmisd), 1889. He was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of 

 London in 1874 ; Fellow of the Calcutta University {honoris causa) 

 in 1875, and Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1882. He was 

 elected President of the Royal Geological Society of Ireland in 1882. 

 He was appointed Clerk in the Receiver Master's Office, Dublin, 

 1860-64 ; and joined the Staff of the Geological Survey of India in 

 1864, and served till 1881. On his return to Ireland he was appointed 

 Professor of Geology and Mineralogy in the University of Dublin, 

 and held office from 1881 to 1883, when he became Director of the 

 Science and Art Museum in Dublin, which office he held until his 

 death. Dr. Ball was also Honorary Secretary of the Royal Zoological 

 Society of Ireland, and a Member of the Council of the Alexandra 

 (Ladies) College, and of that of the Royal Irish Academy. 



His published works are — " Jungle Life in India, or the Journeys 

 and Journals of an Indian Geologist," 1880 ; " The Diamonds, Coal, 

 and Gold of India," 1881; "The Economic Geology of India," 

 1881; an English Translation of " Travernier's Travels in India," 

 with Notes and Appendices, etc., 1889. Besides numerous contri- 

 butions to learned societies, he published several Memoirs on the 

 Geology of extensive tracts in India, and accounts of his visits to and 

 explorations in Afghanistan and Beluchistan, the Andaman and 

 Nicobar Islands, the Himalaj^as, etc. As a collatei'al result of his 

 explorations in the wild and then little-known central regions of the 

 Peninsula of India, where he first discovered several coal-fields, he 

 was enabled to suggest to the Government the most desirable line 

 of route for a direct railway between Calcutta and Bombay. This 

 route has now been adopted, after several years spent in surveys of 

 the various alternative routes. Several of his more important recent 

 contributions to societies are upon the " Identification of the Animals, 

 Plants, and Minerals of India which were known to the Ancients." 

 In the year 1884 he presented a Report to the Science and Art 

 Department on the Museums of America; it was subsequently pub- 

 lished in the Department's Annual Report. He contributed three 

 articles to the Geological Magazine on the " Volcanoes of the Bay 



