Robert Brown. " 309 



active Molecules in Organic and Inorganic Bodies.' These move- 

 ments, the full import of which is at present not understood, he 

 was the first to point out, and draw attention to their importance. 

 On the Continent it is the custom to allude to this phenomenon 

 as the "Brownonian movement." He is the author also of the bo- 

 tanical appendices attached to the accounts of the voyages of Ross 

 and Parry to the Arctic Regions, of Tuckey's expedition to the 

 Congo, and of Oudney, Denham, and Clapperton's explorations in 

 Central Africa. Assisted by Mr. Bennett, he has also described 

 the rarer plants collected by Dr. Horsfield during his residence in 

 Java. 



After the death of Dryander in 1810, Dr. Brown received the 

 charge of the library and collections of Sir Joseph Banks, who. 

 bequeathed them to him for life. They were afterwards, by his 

 permission, transferred to the British Museum in 1827, and he 

 was appointed keeper of Botany in that Institution. In 1811 he 

 became a Fellow of the Royal Society, and has several times been 

 elected on the Council of that body. In 1832 he received the de- 

 gree of D.C.L. from the University of Oxford. In 1833 he was 

 elected one of the eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy 

 of Science. In 1839 the Royal Society awarded him their Copley 

 medal for his discoveries during a series of years ' On the subject 

 of Vegetable Impregnation.' In 1849 he was elected president of 

 the Linnean Society, a post from which he retired in 1853. Duiv 

 ing the administration of Sir Robert Peel he received a pension 

 of £200 as a recognition of his scientific merits. He also received 

 the decoration of the highest Prussian civil order " Pour le Merite, 1 ' 

 of which his friend and survivor at the age of 88, the Baron von 

 Humboldt, is Chancellor. Humboldt long since called him " Bo- 

 tanicorum facile princeps," a title to which all botanists readily 

 admitted his undisputed claim. 



He died surrounded by his collections in the room which had 

 formerly been the library of Sir Joseph Banks. In private, D^. 

 Brown was greatly admired by a large circle of attached friends 

 for the singular soundness of his judgment, the simplicity of his 

 habits, and the kindness of his disposition. He was buried on the 

 15th inst. at the cemetery at Kensal Green, when his funeral was 

 attended by a large body of his scientific and personal friends.— 

 Aihenmum. 



