iv 



India in the same year. His work in India was attended with many 

 difficulties, but it was of very great scientific value. 



Among otlier things he wished to obtain observations at different 

 heights, and the following short statement will exhibit in his own 

 words the nature of the difficulties he met with in carrying out this 

 project, all of which were successfully overcome. 



" It had appeared to me necessary," he says, in the preface to his 

 observations, " for a complete examination of the questions to be solved, 

 that observations should not be limited to a single station, but that 

 the standard observatory should serve not merely for the determination 

 of the laws and physical constants at one point, but also for the com- 

 parison and co-ordination of the laws depending on differences of 

 height, of latitude, and of longitude. 



" With reference to questions connected with difference of height, 

 the Agustia Malley, about twenty-two miles E.N.E. of Trevandrnm, 

 the highest mountain in the narrow chain of the Ghats, rising rapidly 

 from the plains of Coromandel and Malabar, possessed the great 

 advantage of being free from the effects of neighbouring high table- 

 lands. The chief objection to this locality lay in its position, without 

 roads, a day's journey from the nearest cnltivated grounds, surronnded 

 by forests inhabited by elephants and tigers. The construction of an 

 observatory on this nearly inaccessible rocky peak presented con- 

 siderable difficulties. It was doubted, also, whether native observers, 

 accustomed only to the climate of the plains, could live, or could be 

 induced to try to do so, on a mountain top, which for months of each 

 year remains buried in cloud. 



" These and many other difficulties were, however, vanquished, and 

 the observatory, built of wood in the forests about 2,300 feet below 

 the summit, was taken to pieces, carried to the top, and rebuilt there 

 in the first month of 1855." 



Broun was not likely to spare himself, even under such a climate as 

 that of India, and a deafness, which never left him, was caught in one 

 of his excursions on the hills for the purpose of observing. He came 

 back to Europe in 1866, in the hope that medical treatment might 

 remove his deafness. In this he was disappointed ; he then returned 

 to India for three years more. 



On his final return from India he resided, for a time, at Lausanne, 

 and afterwards at Stuttgart, where his whole time was devoted to the 

 preparation of the first volume of the results of the Trevandrum 

 observations. Of this volume, it is sufficient to say that it is no less 

 admirable than those in which the Makerstoun observations were 

 discussed. 



The last six years of Broun's life were spent for the most part in 

 London, where he gave his whole time and energy to the prosecution 

 of scientific research. Upwards of two years ago his health began to 



