54 



Gogga Brown 



specimens to be sent on. Brown replied that he 

 had read the rumour in the press, but, as he had 

 not yet received his certificate, he was not prepared 

 to send the fossils in the meantime. Still impor- 

 tunate the Consul wrote to Brown assuring him 

 that he was not only a F.G.S.V., but a F.I. and 

 R.G.S., and asking incontinently " when is your 

 collection coming ? " In due course the piece of 

 paper that was to Brown an " honour and a source 

 of keen delight " arrived, and he immediately sent 

 off the box which he had ready waiting ; but it 

 was never acknowledged or reported upon, and 

 that was the end of Vienna. 



For twenty-five years Brown had thus pursued 

 his thankless task of collecting fossils and sending 

 them oversea to be described. It is not surprising 

 therefore to find in his letters of this period 

 indications that he was thinking of " abandoning 

 this anything but paying work of searching for 

 specimens " ; but that he was " hoping almost 

 against hope that he would meet with some 

 encouragement yet Two interests helped to 

 tide him over this difficult phase and prevented 

 him from lapsing completely into despair. On 

 the one hand there were his researches in Natural 

 History which he had commenced about the same 

 time as his geological ones. These were steadily 

 progressing, and he was filling volumes with notes 



