Hall took a leading part in the forming of the university science club, and through it met Dr G. B. Pritchard with whom he was later to do valuable work in geology.
Hall was a successful director of the Castlemaine school of mines from 1890 to 1893, and in the latter year became lecturer in biology at Melbourne university.
His Victorian Hill and Dale (1909), describing the geology of the country around Melbourne, is a model book of popular science, written without a trace of scientific jargon; there is barely a technical term in its 150 pages.
He did not write a large number of papers, but his work on the graptolite rocks of Victoria led to his being made the recipient of The Murchison Fund of the Geological Society of London in 1901.
Hall became ill early in 1915, but carried on his work until shortly before his death from chronic nephritis on 21 December 1915.