GIOVANNI BATTISTA, a celebrated Italian mineralogist and geologist, was born at Bassano in February 1772. He studied in the university of Pisa, where his attention was especially turned to mineralogy and botany. In 1802 he was appointed professor of botany in the new Lyceum of Brescia; but he more particularly devoted himself to mineralogy and geology, in the numerous excursions he made into the adjacent districts. The fruits of these labours appeared in different publications, particularly in his Treatise on the Iron Mines in the department of Mella, and his Essay on the Physical Constitution of the Metalliferous Mountains of the Valley of Trompia, which appeared in 1807. His valuable researches procured him, in the following year, the office of inspector of mines in the recently established kingdom of Italy; which enabled him to extend his investigations over a great part of Central and Southern Italy, as well as its northern districts. In 1811 he produced a valuable memoir On the Mineralogy of the Valley of Fassa and the Tyrol; but his most important work is the great Geologia Fossile Subapennina, con Osservazioni Geologiche sulle Apennini, e sul Suolo Adjacente, which was published at Milan, in 2 volumes 4to, in 1814. In this work we have most accurate details of the structure of the Apennine range, and an account of the fossils of their strata; subjects further illustrated by his valuable geomagnetic map and his Catalogo raggiunto di una Raccolta di Rocche, disposto con ordine Geografico, per servire d'Illustrazione della Carta Geognostica dell'Italia. This last work also appeared at Milan in 1817. His work Dello Stato Fisico del Suolo di Roma, with its accompanying map, is admirable for accuracy and judgment. In it he has corrected the erroneous views of Brucislav, who conceived that the Eternal City occupies the site of a volcano, to which he ascribed the tuffa and other volcanic materials that cover the seven hills. Brocchi, on the other hand, has satisfactorily shown that they are derived either from Mont Albano, an extinct volcano 12 miles from Rome, or from Monte Cimino, still further to the north of the city. Indeed he has shown, that the streams or beds of tuffa may be traced almost uninterruptedly from that mountain to Rome.

Several minor papers by him, on other mineralogical subjects, appeared in the Biblioteca Italiana from 1816 to 1823.

In that year Brocchi sailed for Egypt, and engaged with his usual ardour in exploring the geology of that country and its mineral resources, in which he obtained every facility from Mehemet Ali. In 1825 that politic ruler appointed Brocchi one of a commission to examine and organize his conquest of Sennar; but the naturalist, unfortunately for science, fell a victim to the climate, at Khartum, in September 1826.