Xliv PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



to Ilouen. I have been unable to learn anything of the last years of 

 Mr. Bald's life, and I must therefore here close my remarks upon a 

 man, whose talents, which reflected so much credit uj>on his profession, 

 were employed on objects both useful and interesting- to geologists. 



The very eminent Mineralogist and Crystallographer, Henry 

 James Brooke, was born at Exeter on the 25th May, 1771, his 

 relatives being engaged in the manufacture of broad- cloth ; and 

 after having received an ordinary scholastic education, he studied 

 for the Bar, but was induced from the favourable prospects which 

 appeared before him, to abandon that profession and to engage in 

 the Spanish wool- trade in London, for which object he spent 

 nearly two years in Spain : it is, however, justly asserted that the 

 active study of the law had, like that of mathematics, the effect 

 of framing his mind to precise habits of thought and expression, 

 the effects of which became apparent in all his subsequent acts 

 and observations. In the year 1812, soon after he had become 

 a resident of London, he turned his attention to the subjects of 

 Mineralogy, Geology, and Botany, but more especially to the two 

 former sciences, for which he had a peculiar predilection. He 

 was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1815, of the 

 Linnean in 1818, and of the Eoyal in 1819, on the Council of which 

 Society he served in 1842-44. Though devoting his leisure hours 

 to scientific pursuits, Mr. Brooke did not neglect his ordinary duties, 

 and assisted the late Mr. Henry Hase, Cashier of the Bank of En- 

 gland, in establishing the London Life Assurance Association ; and, 

 as the Spanish wool- trade began to decline, Mr. Brooke sought a pur- 

 suit more congenial to his taste in the establishment of companies 

 to work the mines of South America ; but, as these undertakings 

 were too often marred in their j)rospects of success by difliculties 

 abroad, he accepted the office of Secretary of the London Life Asso- 

 ciation, in forming which he had assisted ; and after several years' 

 service, such was the appreciation of the advantages he had con- 

 ferred on that body, that on his retirement a liberal annuity was 

 granted to him by the society. 



Though interrupted for some time in the pursuit of his favourite 

 sciences, by the consequences of a serious accident he experienced by 

 being knocked down by a horse suddenly turning a corner near his 

 residence, Mr. Brooke was not a man to be satisfied with idleness, 

 and for recreation's sake he formed a large collection of shells, which 

 he afterwards presented to the University of Cambridge. Not think- 

 ing the study of the simple envelopes of organic bodies sufficiently 

 intellectual, he then took to the collection of engravings, having 

 himself early in life made considerable progress as an amateur artist ; 

 and some vspecimens of rare excellence were presented by him to the 

 national collection in the British Museum. This interruption of his 

 scientific labours was only of short duration, and being usually blessed 

 with excellent health, he continued to pursue his favourite studies 

 with unabated activity until a short time before his death on the 26th 

 June, 1857, at the good old age of 86 years. 



