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BKOWN. 582 BROWN. nas since continued under the same firm name. He was one of tlie most generous patrons of the Khode Ishind College, and in 1840 that institu- tion took his name in recognition of his bene- factions. His gift* to the college aggregated $100,000, and he also gave nearly $10,000 to the Providence Athen;eum, and bequeathed $30,000 for an asylum for the insane at Providence. Consult: Hunt. Lives of American Merchants (New York, 1856). BROWN, Robert (1773-1858). An eminent Scottish botanist. He was born in Montrose, December 21, 1773, the son of an Episcopal clergyman, and was educated at Marischal Col- lege, Aberdeen. Having studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, he became, in 1795, en- sign and assistant surgeon in a Scottish fencible regiment, with which he went to Ireland. De- voting himself to the study of botany, he resigned his commissions in 1800, and the following year was, on the recommendation of Sir Joseph Banks, engaged as naturalist in the expedition sent out under Captain Flinders for the survey of the Australian coasts. On his return, in 1805, he brought home nearly 4000 species of Australian plants, a large proportion of which were new to science. Soon after he was appointed librarian to the Linm^an Society. To the Triiiisactioiis of the Edinburgh Wernerian Society and those of the Linna'an Society, he contributed memoirs on Asclciiiailca- and Proieacece, and published Pro- droinus J'lorw yovw HoUandice ct Insulw Van Diemen, Vol. I. (1810); a supplement to this work appeared in 1830, relating to the Proteacew only. He also wrote the General Remarks, Geo- graithical and Systematical, on the Botany of Terra Australis '(1814), attached to the narra- tive of Captain Flinders's expedition. His adop- tion of the natural system of Jussieu. the French botanist, led to its general substitution in jilace of the Linnajan method. Brown's numerous me- moirs in transactions of societies, and other con- tributions to botanical science, secured the uni- versal approval of tlie title conferred on him by Alexander von Humboldt of liotanicorum facile Prineeps. In 1810 Brown received the charge of the library and splendid collections of Sir Joseph Banks", which, in 1827. were transferred to the British Museum, when he was appointed keeper of the botanical department in that es- tablishment. In 1811 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society, which in 1839 awarded him the Copley Medai for his Discoveries During a Scries of Years on the Subject of Vegetable Impregna- tion. Oxford conferred on him the degree of D.C.L. in 1832: the Academy of Sciences of the French Institute elected him a foreign associate; and the King of Prussia decorated him. He was president of the I.innaan Society from 1849 to 1853, and died in London. .June 10. 1858. His Miscellaneous liotanical Works (ed. Bennett) ■were published in 2 vols., 1866-68. See Bbown- lAN ^loVEMENT. BROWN, Robert (1842-95). A Scottish scien- tist and author. He was born in Campster, Caithness, and studied in Edinburgh, Leyden, Copenhagen, and Rostock. He visited Spitz- bergen, Greenland, and the western shore of Baf- fin's Bay (1861), and subsequently carried on scientific investigations among the islands of the Pacific and on the Venezuelan, Alaskan, and Bering shores, making charts of all the un- known interior of Vancouver, and writing much on the fauna and flora of those countries. With E. Whymper, in 1867, he attempted to penetrate the inland ice of (ircenland, and made many dis- coveries concerning its nature which have since been confirmed by Peary. He afterwards trav- eled in the Barbary States of >forth Africa, was a lecturer on geology, botany, and zoijlogj' in Edinburgh and (Jlasgow, and was a member of many learned societies in England, America, and on the Continent. He removed to London in 1876, and thereafter devoted himself entirely to literary work. In addition to many scientific memoirs, and articles and reviews in various languages, his publications include Peoples of the World (6 vols.. 18S2-85) : .S'cif»re for All (5 vols.. 1877-82) ; and a Manual of Botany (1874). BROWN, Sir Samuel (1776-1852). An Eng- lish engineer. He was born in London, served with distinction in the British Navy, and became a retired captain in 1842. He is best known for his method of making iron chain cables, and as a designer and builder (1822) of the first iron sus- pension bridge in England, across the Tweed at Berwick. He also designed the chain pier at Brighton. BROWN, Samuel Gilman (1813-85).. An American educator. He was born in North Yar- mouth, Maine, the son of President Francis Brown of Dartmouth College, graduated at Dart- mouth in 1831 and at Andover Theological Semi- nary in 1837, was professor of oratory and belles- lettres in Dartmouth from 1839 to 1803. and held the chair of intellectual philosophy and political economy from 1863 to 1867. From 1867 to 1881 he was president of Hamilton College. Among his published works are Biographies of Self- Taught Hen (1847) and an C-Xcellent and au- thoritative Life of I!ufus Choate (2 vols.. 1862). BKOWN, S.Mi'EL ROBBINS (1810-80). An American missionary to China. He was born in Connecticut, graduated at Yale in 1832, studied theology in Columbia, S. C, and taught for four years (1834-38) in the New York Institution for the Deaf and Dumb. In 1838 he went to Canton and opened, for the Morrison Education Society, the first Protestant school in the Chinese Em- pire — a school in which were taught Yung Wing and other pupils who afterwards came to the I'nited States. After nine years' service, his wife's health failing, Dr. Brown returned to the United States and became a pastor and teacher of boys at Owasco Outlet, near Auburn (1851- 59). He worked for the formation of a college for women, which was situated first in Auburn and tlien in Elmira, N. Y. When, by the Town- send Harris treaty of 1858, Y'okohama and Nagasaki in .Japan were opened to trade and residence. Dr. Brown sailed for the former port and o])ened a school in which hundreds of young men. afterwards leaders in various walks of life, were educated. He translated the New Testa- ment, and taught and preached for twenty years. He was one of the founders of the Asiatic So- ciety of Japan, and in many ways was one of the most prominent makers of the New Jap*n. He is buried at Monson, Mass., his boyhood's home. He has |)ublished: Colloquial Japanese (1863), a grammar, i)hrase-book, and vocabu- lary; Prendcrgast's Mastery System Adapted to the Japanese; translation of Arai Hakuseki's Sei Yo Ki Bun: or, Annals of the Western