340 Memoir of the Rev. Thomas Brown. 



Becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1861, he found 

 himself in the midst of the scientific and lettered culture for 

 which Edinburgh is now, as in the olden times, famous. 

 His environments led him to hark back on old leanings and 

 pursuits. But this did not draw him away from, or interfere 

 with, what he had chosen as the supreme work of his life. 

 It only helped him to give to the work wider scope, and, 

 for illustrative purposes, to bring to bear on it the rich and 

 ever fresh information which was his as a student and 

 interpreter of Nature [Homo Minister et interpres Natures.) 

 Meeting him at random in the Royal Society's rooms, or after 

 long hours of discussions in church courts and committees, 

 or on the street, he was always ready for science discourse. 

 It seemed to put new heart into him to get into talk 

 touching Berwickshire geology and botany. A newspaper 

 paragraph, on a scientific article, bearing on the physical 

 geology or palaeontology of districts with which he was well 

 acquainted, seldom escaped his notice. Dr Brown died on 

 the 4th of April 1893. 



This brief and rapid enumeration of the chief incidents in 

 Dr Brown's public life may serve as an introduction to some 

 notes on his chief contributions to Natural Science, which, 

 indeed, was the chief object in view when I agreed to write 

 this obituary notice. Dr Brown's early association with the 

 Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, and the great interest he took 

 in its Proceedings, are well known. Like most of us, he 

 appreciated its true sphere, and acknowledged it success within 

 that, and the influence of its work on Scottish Naturalists 

 generally. Looking over its Proceedings year by year, and 

 trying to estimate the value of its work within the district 

 to which its work is, for the most part, limited, I have often 

 remembered the quaint title of a small book published early 

 in 1623— 2%e Tillage of the Light. The author, Patrick Scot, 

 bad been an enthusiastic alchymist in his youth, but had 

 come to question both the methods and the motives of his 

 former friends. In the wide field of Nature light had been 

 sown — light the truth in Nature. The soil needs to be 

 broken up, to be tilled. Its tillage is the labour of science. 

 Its tillers the students of science — Oeod gup ea/nev r/ewpyiov. 

 When the area of observation is limited, and the observers 

 competent, we are warranted to count on good results. These 



