Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/479

 Broun and tedious, and Broughton, in the opinion of many, was unduly cautious (Lord Minto in India: Life and Letters of Gilbert Elliot, first Earl of Minto, 1807-14, edited by his grandniece, the Countess of Minto, 280). It was the beginning of August before the troops were landed in the neighbourhood of Batavia. On 9 Aug. the squadron was joined by Rear-admiral the Hon. Robert Stopford, who had come on to take the command. Broughton was annoyed, and applied for a court-martial on the rear-admiral 'for behaving in a cruel, oppressive, and fraudulent manner, unbecoming the character of an officer, in depriving me of the command of the squadron.' On the other hand, Lord Minto wrote in his private letters : 'The little commodore's brief hour of authority came to an end, to the great relief of all in the fleet and army ' (ibid. 282). Possibly this opinion reached the admiralty ; at any rate, they did not think fit to grant Broughton's request, and in fact approved of the course taken by Stopford. In 1812 Broughton returned to England. He was made a C.B. at the peace, and during his later years resided at Florence, where he died suddenly on 12 March 1821. He married his cousin Jemima, youngest daughter of Rev. Sir Thomas Delves Broughton, bart., of Doddington Hall, Cheshire, by whom he had three daughters, and one son, William, afterwards a captain in the navy.

[Official letters in the Public Record Office ; Gent. Mag. (1821) xci. i. 376, 648.]  BROUN. [See and .]  BROUN, JOHN ALLAN (1817–1879), magnetician and meteorologist, was born on 21 Sept. 1817 at Dumfries, where his father kept a preparatory school for the navy. He entered the university of Edinburgh on his father's death (about 1837). There his turn for physical science attracted the friendship of Professor J. D. Forbes. Through his recommendation he was appointed in April 1842 vdirector of the magnetic observatory founded by Sir Thomas Brisbane at Makerstoun, and, after a short preparatory course of training at Greenwich, entered upon his task with an enthusiasm which quickly widened its scope, and gave to the establishment a high rank among those engaged in simultaneous observations on the plan advocated by Humboldt. Throughout the years 1844-5 observations with all the magnetic and meteorological instruments were made hourly (except on Sundays) ; and though the term originally fixed for the extended activity of the observatory expired in 1846, a limited series of observations was continued for three years longer under Broun's direction, and after his departure until 1855. The preparation of the results for the press cost him much ungrateful toil in developing and testing new methods of correction, which have been generally adopted, and entitle him to a place among the founders of the new observational science of terrestrial magnetism. The data thus laboriously provided, which were of permanent and standard value, appeared under his editorship as volumes xvii. to xix. of the 'Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh' (1845-50), with an appendix, edited by Professor Balfour Stewart (supplement to vol. xxii. 1860).

Broun left Makerstoun in the autumn of 1849, and spent the winter in Edinburgh engaged in completing the reduction of his observations with the aid of his friend and assistant, Mr. John Welsh, afterwards director of the Kew Observatory. In 1850 he went to Paris, where he married Isaline Vallouy, daughter of a clergyman of Huguenot extraction in the Canton du Vaud, by whom he had three sons and two daughters. In the following year he was nominated, at the instance of Colonel Sykes, director of the Trevandrum Magnetic Observatory, founded by the Rajah of Travancore in 1841, and entered upon his arduous duties there in January 1852. Nor did he limit himself to those officially committed to him, but aimed at promoting the general welfare of the province. He established a museum, issued an amended almanac, attempted a reform of weights and measures, planned and superintended the construction of public gardens, a road to the mountains, and a sanatorium. Renewing in 1855 an experiment partially carried out on the Cheviot hills in the summer of 1847 (Report Brit. Assoc. 1847, ii. 19 ; 1850, ii. 7), he built an observatory on the Agustia Malley, the highest peak of the Travancore Ghats, 6,200 feet above the sea. The difficulties in the way were very great, owing to the wild nature of the country, the presence of wild beasts, the superstitious fears and bodily sufferings of the natives ; and Broun himself caught a chill from the sudden transition of temperature, inducing a permanent deafness, for which he vainly sought medical assistance in Europe in 1860. On his return after two years he found the Agustia observatory in ruins, and rebuilt it in 1863 for the purpose of making a final set of observations with new instruments. The results went to show that both magnetic and barometrical oscillations remain unchanged in character at a height of 6,200 feet, but become during the daytime reduced in amount by one half (Proc. R. Soc. xi. 298).

In April 1865 Broun left India definitively, and during a residence of some years, first at 