43 
Under his direction Bulphuric acid was tnanufactared in North ( larolina after many 
failures in attempting to obtain the lead required for lining the chambers. Niter 
was obtained from caves and from leaching in ricks tin- remains of dead horses and 
other animals. The sulphuric acid and niter were made into nitric arid at the arse- 
nal, and thus the fulminate was developed which was required for the manufacture 
of caps. The mercury supply becoming exhausted near the close of the war, the 
problem became a serious one li<>\v to make the caps without fulminate of mercury. 
Experiments, however, were conducted, resulting in the use of a c bination of 
chlorate of potash ami Bulphurel of antimony. Battles around Petersburg were 
fought with caps made of this compound. 
He developed a plan for increasing the accuracy and range <>f the Bmooth-bore 
muskets which were in general use by the armies at the opening of the war. 
All orders from ( ieneral Lee for arms and ammunition were honored, and even a 
train load of ammunition was sent to Petersburg after the order was received for the 
evacuation of Richmond. 
Probably the last order given in Richmond was issued by Colonel Broun to the 
keeper of the magazine to destroy these stores at 5 o'clock on the morning of April 
L3, 1865. 
The work of Colonel Broun in the manufacture of arms and ordnance stores is 
remakable when we know that at the opening of the war the South had no factories 
of this kind nor skilled mechanics. This fact being well understood, ope marvels 
how it was possible that so large an army was supplied with all the munitions of 
war during four years of the most stupendous struggle the world has ever witnessed. 
After the war the University of Georgia again caufled Doctor Broun to her service 
as professor of natural philosophy, and subsequently he was elected president of the 
college of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, a branch of the university. His services 
in the university extended over the years 1 806-1875. While holding this position 
he organized and engineered the plan to establish a State geological survey and an 
agricultural department, and organized the State Agricultural College. He was also 
one of the leading spirits in the State Agricultural Society of Georgia, and took an 
active part in all the meetings of these important farmers' associations. Doctor 
Broun, I am informed, was the lirst in the South to introduce the inspection and 
analysis of commercial fertilizers, lie had this work done through the State Agri- 
cultural Society by the chemist of the State Agricultural College. The samples were 
drawn under the direction of the secretary and analyzed by the chemist without State 
aid and without cost to the farmers. Shortly after this work was instituted the State 
agricultural department was established, and the analysis of fertilizers Mas sanctioned 
by law. 
in 1S75 Doctor Broun resigned the chair in the University of Georgia to accept the 
chair of mathematics in Vanderbilt University, in which position he remained for 
seven years. In 1882 he was elected president of the Alabama Polytechnic Institute, 
which he held for one year and then resigned to accept a call to the professorship of 
mathematics in the Texas University and the chairmanship of the faculty. There 
he was associated with Doctor Mallett, of the University of Virginia, and other dis- 
tinguished teachers who had been gathered there from every part of the country by 
the hoard of trustees of the Texas University. Doctor Broun returned to the Ala- 
bama institution in 1884 at the earnest solicitation of the board of trustees, and 
remained in charge of the affairs of that college, which he discharged with great 
success and distinction until his death in 1902. 
More than twenty-three years ago, in an address delivered in Alabama before an 
educational gathering, he asserted that a correct interpretation of the act establishing 
the agricultural and mechanical colleges would develop the institutions into schools 
where a liberal and broad education could be obtained, an education giving skill to 
the hands as well as to the brain, and in fact yielding to all the faculties of the mind 
and body great powers for usefulness in developing the resources of the country. 
He believed that all the sciences should be provided for in the courses of study in 
these colleges, and that there should be a sufficient amount and number of the liter- 
ary topics introduced in order to make the students thoroughly educated and well- 
rounded men, to do much more than simply to lift them out of the sphere of " hewers 
of wood and drawers of water." In reorganizing the Alabama State College he 
provided not only for those subjects related to agriculture ami the mechanic arts, 
but he also established chairs for the teaching of the modern languages and Latin, 
believing that it was in the mind of Senator Morrill, when he wrote the bill, that 
the "industrial classes" should have provided for them in these colleges an educa- 
tion of equal value and dignity to the education then furnished by the best university 
of the land. 
The results accomplished by this active and intelligent man were varied and valu- 
