PREFATORY NOTE. 



We must feel grateful to Professor Drennan of 

 the University of Cape Town for the following 

 memoir, in which he has rescued from oblivion 

 one of the most curious characters in South African 

 science. The book is full of both scientific and 

 human interest. Brown came to South Africa as 

 a young man, and in a long life of great obscurity, 

 and even penury, spent himself in collecting 

 specimens in geology, prehistoric archaeology, and 

 natural history in the neighbourhood of Aliwal 

 North, a town on the Orange River in the north- 

 east of the Cape Province. Without a technical 

 scientific training he had yet an insatiable thirst t 

 for knowledge, and succeeded in making unique 

 collections of specimens. At first he tried to pass 

 his finds on to institutions and museums in 

 London, Paris and Vienna, but encountered many 

 disappointments. Gradually he seems to have 

 changed from the disinterested collector into the 

 scientific miser. He kept his finds for himself 

 and enjoyed his own collections as a sort of private 

 hoard. 



It was a stroke of great good luck that Dr. R. 

 Broom, F.R.S., could finally coax him into a more 



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