lxii PKOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May 1 896,. 



Valentine Ball, C.B., M.A., and LL.D. (Dublin), F.R.S., 

 M.R.I.A., Director of the National Museum at Dublin, was the 

 second son of the well-known naturalist, Dr. Robert Ball, who died 

 in 1857. His elder brother is Sir Robert Ball, of Cambridge, and 

 his younger brother is Dr. Charles B. Ball, of Merrion Square, 

 Dublin. Dr. Valentine Ball was born on July 14th, 1843, at No. 3 

 Granby Row, Dublin, a house well known in those days as a leading 

 centre of intellectual resort in that metropolis. He was educated 

 first at a private school by Dr. Brindley at Chester, and afterwards 

 by Dr. Benson, in the early days of Rathmines School. 



Valentine Ball entered Trinity College in 1860, and about the 

 same time he was appointed by the later Master Fitzgibbon to a 

 clerkship in the office of the Examiner in Chancery. His University 

 career was not an eventful one in the academic sense, for the duties 

 of his office in the Pour Courts did not leave him sufficient time for 

 more than obtaining an ordinary degree. A taste for scientific 

 pursuits was, however, so marked that in 1864, when he was 

 twenty-one years of age, he was appointed to the Geological Survey 

 of India, then under the direction of Dr. Thomas Oldham. Ball 

 felt that this would give him the opportunity which he wanted for 

 the study of nature in a wide field, and accordingly he went to 

 India. His duties as a geological surveyor often led him into very 

 unfrequented parts of our Oriental possessions, and frequently, for 

 many months together, he lived in camp in the jungle, apart from 

 all other Europeans. Wherever Ball travelled he utilized his oppor- 

 tunities to the utmost ; indeed, throughout his life, his diligence 

 could hardly have been surpassed, and nothing worthy of notice 

 that came within his range was unobserved and unrecorded. It 

 was presently apparent that the young geological surveyor was not 

 only able to fulfil his duties in making a careful investigation of 

 the rocks and of their economic value, but that various other 

 branches of natural history were sedulously cultivated by him. 



Steadily the reputation of the Indian geologist advanced in 

 scientific circles. He was elected a Fellow of the Calcutta Uni- 

 versity in 1872. He devoted a short vacation to extending his 

 travels to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and to visiting 

 Barren Island and Narcondam volcanoes in the Bay of Bengal, 

 which he described in the ' Geological Magazine,' 1879, p. 16, pi. i. ; 

 1888, p. 404 ; and 1893, p. 289, pi. xiii. 



In 1874 Valentine Ball was elected a Eellovv of the Geological 

 Society of London. His first important volume, ' Jungle Life in 



