Robert Brown

BROWN, Robert (1842-95). A Scottish scientist and author. He was born in Campster, Caithness, and studied in Edinburgh, Leyden, Copenhagen, and Rostock. He visited Spitzbergen, Greenland, and the western shore of Baffin'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 unknown 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 Greenland, and made many discoveries concerning its nature which have since been confirmed by Peary. He afterwards traveled in the Barbary States of North Africa, was a lecturer on geology, botany, and zoölogy in Edinburgh and Glasgow, 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., 1882-85); Science for All (5 vols., 1877-82); and a Manual of Botany (1874).