Henry Yorke Lyell Brown
Encyclopedia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n geologist
Geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...
.
Brown was born at Sydney Mines
Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia
Sydney Mines is a former town in Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Regional Municipality.Founded in 1784 and incorporated as a town in 1889, Sydney Mines has a rich history in coal production, although mining activity has now ceased.Prior to a permanent settlement being established, there was significant...
, Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, the son of Richard Brown, also a geologist, and his wife Sibella, née Barrington. He was educated at King's College, Windsor, Nova Scotia
Windsor, Nova Scotia
Windsor is a town located in Hants County, Mainland Nova Scotia at the junction of the Avon and St. Croix Rivers. It is the largest community in western Hants County with a 2001 population of 3,779 and was at one time the shire town of the county. The region encompassing present day Windsor was...
, and matriculated in 1862. He then studied under T. H. Huxley and John Tyndall
John Tyndall
John Tyndall FRS was a prominent Irish 19th century physicist. His initial scientific fame arose in the 1850s from his study of diamagnetism. Later he studied thermal radiation, and produced a number of discoveries about processes in the atmosphere...
at the Royal School of Mines
Royal School of Mines
Royal School of Mines comprises the departments of Earth Science and Engineering, and Materials at Imperial College London.- History :The Royal School of Mines was established in 1851, as the Government School of Mines and Science Applied to the Arts...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, in 1863-64. He came to Australia in 1865 and worked on the Geological Survey of Victoria under Alfred Selwyn
Alfred Richard Cecil Selwyn
Alfred Richard Cecil Selwyn, CMG, LL.D, FRS, FGS was a British geologist, director of the Geological Survey of Victoria from 1852–1869, director of Geological Survey of Canada 1869–1894 and President of the Royal Society of Canada 1895-1896.-Early life:Selwyn was born in Kilmington, Somerset,...
until 1869.
Brown was government geologist in Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
in 1870-72. He discovered the Weld Range, drilled the first artesian bore near Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
, and forecast accurately that the colony's mineral resources would eventually become a main source of its advance. In 1872 he worked in private mining in Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
and two years later rejoined Selwyn in Canada. Finding the climate too severe, he returned to Australia to work for the New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
government in 1881-82.
In December 1882 Brown became, at twice his previous salary, government geologist of South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
. He made the first recorded observations of much of the hot, arid interior, often travelling alone but for an 'Afghan' camel-driver or Aboriginal guide, under harsh conditions. In 1883 he journeyed to the far north-eastern corner of the colony and in 1885 to Silverton
Silverton, New South Wales
Silverton is a small village at the far west of New South Wales, Australia, 25 kilometres north-west of Broken Hill. At the 2006 census, Silverton had a population of 89 people....
and from Port Augusta
Port Augusta, South Australia
-Electricity generation:Electricity is generated at the Playford B and Northern power stations from brown coal mined at Leigh Creek, 250 km to the north...
to Eucla and back. He went to the Musgrave Ranges
Musgrave Ranges
Musgrave Ranges is a mountain range in Central Australia, straddling the boundary of South Australia and the Northern Territory , extending into Western Australia. It is between the Great Victoria Desert to the south and the Gibson Desert to the north...
in 1889, and through the Lake Eyre
Lake Eyre
Lake Eyre is the lowest point in Australia, at approximately below sea level, and, on the rare occasions that it fills, it is the largest lake in Australia and 18th largest in the world...
region in 1892. His longest journey was made through the Northern Territory
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...
from north to south in 1894. He explored the MacDonnell Ranges
MacDonnell Ranges
The MacDonnell Ranges of the Northern Territory, are a long series of mountain ranges located in the centre of Australia , and consist of parallel ridges running to the east and west of Alice Springs...
in 1888, 1890 and 1896 and the country to the north of the Nullarbor Plain
Nullarbor Plain
The Nullarbor Plain is part of the area of flat, almost treeless, arid or semi-arid country of southern Australia, located on the Great Australian Bight coast with the Great Victoria Desert to its north. It is the world's largest single piece of limestone, and occupies an area of about...
in 1897, and in 1905 journeyed to Charlotte Waters and to the north-west of the Northern Territory. In 1907 he went from Van Diemen Gulf
Van Diemen Gulf
Van Diemen Gulf is a gulf between Arnhem Land, of the attached Cobourg Peninsula and Melville Island in northern Australia. It is connected to the Timor Sea in the west by the Clarence Strait , and to the Arafura Sea in the north by Dundas Strait...
to the McArthur River
McArthur River
The McArthur River is a river in the Northern Territory of Australia which flows into the Gulf of Carpentaria at Port McArthur, opposite the Sir Edward Pellew Group of Islands. The river was named by Ludwig Leichhardt while he explored the area in 1845...
. On Brown's last major trip in 1909 he assessed the Tanami
Tanami Desert
The Tanami Desert is a desert in northern Australia situated in the Northern Territory. It has a rocky terrain with small hills. The Tanami was the Northern Territory's final frontier and was not fully explored until well into the twentieth century...
goldfield. His written reports of these explorations were minimal; mostly he recorded the results on maps. He had achieved a major objective with the production of a geological map of the whole colony in 1899. At this time Brown was described by the Critic as "noted for his Bohemian habits and dry humour".
In 1887 and 1890 Brown had published records of the mines of South Australia to draw attention to mineral resources and to the unsystematic way in which they were worked. He criticized the licence laws as unfair to genuine prospectors and called for a school of mines. He always worded his reports on sensational 'discoveries' carefully so that 'rarely was it possible to … exaggerate a good impression into a glowing opinion'. In controversy he was restrained and polite.
In 1911 Brown resigned, took six months leave and married a New Zealander, Hannah M. Thompson. He continued to act as an honorary consultant to the Department of Mines in Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
until his death. This lithe 'little brown man with a hammer in his hand' had stimulated gold-mining and the copper industry in the State, charted the limits of artesian water in central Australia and discovered natural outlets for the disposal of flood waters in the south-east. At his death in Adelaide on 22 January 1928 it was said that "he knew every mineral belt from Darwin to Mount Gambier". He was survived by his wife and only daughter.