Agnes Mary Clerke

“ For above forty years he was one of the calculators for the ‘Nautical Almanack,’ and on his retirement received the thanks of the Board of Longitude, with a handsome present in recognition of his services. Dr. Hutton employed him similarly for Moore's and other almanacks, and Dr. Maskelyne corresponded with him during nearly fifty years. By him and others he was esteemed no less for the modesty and integrity of his character than for the singular abilities by which he had raised himself from a humble station to a position of honour amongst men of science. ”

“ In the morning, till eleven or twelve, she is dull and weary, but as the day advances she gains life, and is quite “fresh and funny” at ten o'clock p.m., and sings old rhymes, nay, even dances! to the great delight of all who see her.’ Her ninety-sixth birthday was marked by Humboldt's transmission to her, in the name of the king of Prussia, of the gold medal for science. On the succeeding anniversary she entertained the crown prince and princess with great animation for two hours, even singing to them a composition of her brother William. ”

“ Cotes died 5 June 1716, of a violent fever, in the thirty-fourth year of his age. ‘Had Cotes lived,’ Newton exclaimed, ‘we might have known something!’ And he was no less loved than admired, attractive manners combining with beauty of person and an amiable disposition to endear him to all with whom he came in contact. He was buried in the chapel of Trinity College, the restoration of which he had actively superintended; and the monument erected to his memory by his cousin and successor, Robert Smith, was adorned with an epitaph composed by Bentley under the influence of genuine sorrow. ”

“ A joint translation by Herschel and Peacock of Lacroix's ‘Elementary Treatise on the Differential Calculus,’ Cambridge, 1816, with an appendix on finite differences by Herschel, styled by Professor Tait ‘one of the most charming mathematical works ever written,’ became a university text-book, and was succeeded in 1820 by two admirable volumes of ‘Examples’ by Herschel and Babbage. To these works was mainly due the restoration of mathematical science in England by introducing the differential notation and continental methods of analysis. ”

“ She passed away tranquilly on 9 Jan. 1848, in her ninety-eighth year, and was buried with her parents in the churchyard of the ‘Gartengemeinde’ at Hanover. Her coffin was, by command of the princess royal, adorned with palm-branches, and, at her own request, contained a lock of her ‘revered brother's’ hair; and the inscription on her tombstone, composed by herself, commemorated her ‘participation in his immortal labours.’
Caroline Herschel was absolutely without personal ambition, and jealous of her own praises lest they should seem to abate anything from her brother's merits. ”

“ Horrocks had extraordinary intuitions of truth. He first ascribed to the moon an elliptic orbit of which the earth occupied one focus, adding a variation of the eccentricity, and a revolution of the line of apsides. ”

“ It was at Cambridge about 1812 that the first idea of calculating numerical tables by machinery occurred to Babbage. The favourable opinion of Wollaston encouraged him in 1819 to make a serious effort towards its realisation. Machines, such as had existed since Pascal's time, for performing single arithmetical operations, afforded neither saving of time nor security against error, since the selection and placing of a number of arbitrary figures was no less laborious and uncertain than the calculation itself. ”

“ Newton's resumption of his toil upon the lunar theory brought him into constant intercourse with the astronomer royal. ‘Sir Isaac,’ Flamsteed said afterwards, ‘worked with the ore he had dug.’ ‘If he dug the ore,’ Sir Isaac replied, ‘I made the gold ring’ (Brewster, Memoirs of Newton, ii. 178) .
On 1 Sept. 1694 Newton visited the Royal Observatory, and Flamsteed, ‘esteeming him to be an obliged friend,’ explained the progress of his work, and gave him a hundred and fifty observed places of the moon with their tabular errors, for his private use in correcting the theory of her motions. ”

“ In 1801 he hit upon the explanatory idea, verified by numerous experiments, that the particles of every kind of elastic fluid are elastic only with regard to those of their own kind. This now discarded theorem rested on the fact (first observed by Dalton) that the quantity of aqueous vapour suspended in a given space depends upon temperature alone, and is unaffected by the pressure of air. Hence his generalisation that the maximum density of a vapour in contact with its liquid remains the same whether other gases be present or not. ”

“ He divined at once that the progressive tranamission of light, combined with the advance of the earth in its orbit, must cause an annual shifting of the direction in which the heavenly bodies are seen, by an amount depending upon the ratio of the two velocities. Working out the problem in detail, he found that the consequences agreed perfectly with the rules already deduced from observation, and announced his memorable discovery of the 'aberration of light' in the form of a letter to Halley, read before the Royal Society 9 and 16 Jan. ”

“ The prolonged succession of Herschel's discoveries and speculations were laid before the Royal Society in sixty-nine memoirs, forming an aggregate unmatched for originality, inventiveness, and power. In nearly every branch of modern physical astronomy he was a pioneer. He was the virtual founder of sidereal science. As an explorer of the heavens he had but one rival, his son. His ‘reviews of the heavens’ afforded him a harvest of 2,500 nebulæ, where 103 had been previously known. ”

“ In 1825 Baily retired from business, purchased a house and sycamore-shaded garden at 37 Tavistock Place, and devoted himself wholly to astronomy. He was then fifty-one; but in the nineteen years remaining to him he executed labours the extent and value of which it is difficult, in a brief summary, adequately to describe. Although not himself an habitual observer, the scope of his efforts was directed to imparting a higher value to the observations of others, both by connecting them with the past and by assuring them for the future. ”

“ Miss Herschel's later years were cheered by many attentions. All men of science passing through Hanover, among them Gauss, Humboldt, and Mädler, called to see her. The royal family showed her constant kindness, and she had a particular regard for the Duke of Cambridge. Until 1839 her tiny figure was rarely absent from the theatre, where she was pleased to be noticed as a celebrity; she never missed a concert, and recorded her delight with Catalani and Paganini. A visit from her nephew in October 1824 afforded her vivid pleasure. ”

“ On the termination of his university career he travelled for some time in France and Italy, then settled in London as a physician some time before 1730. He was successful, but unsatisfied, until in 1738 he removed to Stoke Newington, where he had built and fitted up an observatory. Here he worked with such diligence, frequently taking 160 star-transits in a single night, that in 1745 he found himself in a position to undertake the compilation of a 'Uranographia Britannica,' or exact view of the heavens, in fifty-two large plates, including many more stars than had been given in Bayer's maps. ”

“ Collins nevertheless respected him as ‘a very learned man, more knowing in algebra, in some respects, than any other.’ ‘But to incite him to publish anything,’ he added, ‘seems to be as vain an endeavour as to think of grasping the Italian Alps in order to their removal. He hath been a man accounted incommunicable’ (ib. pp. 196–7) . His hints of new methods led to nothing. ‘We have been fed with vain hopes from Dr. Pell about twenty or thirty years,’ Collins wrote to James Gregory in or near 1674 (ib. ii. 195) . ”

“ A volume entitled 'The Exposition of 1851; or Views of the Industry, the Science, and the Government of England' (1851) , is the diatribe of a disappointed man, and, like his autobiographical 'Passages from the Life of a Philosopher' (1864) , is disfigured by personal allusions, in giving utterance to which he wronged his better nature. ”

“ He was also comparer of the Nautical Almanac, and retained his butlership until his death, which occurred at Cambridge on 10 March 1775. Notwithstanding the inferiority of his position, he was admitted to the intimacy of many men distinguished in science, and Dr. Long testified his unbroken regard by appointing him one of the executors to his will. Dunthorne was esteemed not only for his astronomical requirements, but for his integrity and kindliness. He never forgot his humble relatives, and procured a settlement in life for some of the younger ones. ”

“ She brought the stars of the ‘British Catalogue’ into zones of one degree each for his ‘sweeps,’ copied his papers, and prepared his catalogues for the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ besides the occupations of housekeeping, needlework, and entertaining distinguished visitors. ”

“ Townley's curious mensurator’ they ‘attained to the preciseness of 5′′.’ ‘I had no pendulum movement,’ he adds, ‘to measure time with, they being not common in the country at that time. But I took the heights of the stars for finding the true time of my observations by a wood quadrant about eighteen inches radius fixed to the side of my seven-foot telescope, which I found performed well enough for my purpose.’ This was by necessity limited to such determinations as needed no great accuracy in time, such as of the lunar and planetary diameters, and of the elongations of Jupiter's satellites. ”

“ He was, Anthony à Wood says, 'a learned man, and as great a lover and encourager of learning and learned men, especially of mathematicians (he being one himself) , as any man in his time.' He had issue one son, William Aylesbury, and a daughter Frances, married to the great Earl of Clarendon, by whom she became the mother of Anne Hyde, first wife of James II., and mother of the two queens, Mary and Anne. ”

“ An affection of the eyes latterly precluded him from observing, and he died peacefully in his sleep at Maidenhead on 5 Oct. 1880, leaving behind him a high reputation for moral worth and practical scientific efficiency. His specula have never been surpassed for perfection and permanence of figure and polish, and he ranks with Sir William Herschel and Lord Rosse among the perfecters of the reflecting telescope. The instrument with which he made most of his discoveries was presented by the Misses Lassell after his death to the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. ”

“ The university proved of little service to him; yet without mathematical instruction or the stimulus of sympathy, he determined ‘that the tediousness of study should be overcome by industry, my poverty by patience, and that instead of a master I would use astronomical books.’ In the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, is preserved a copy of Lansberg's ‘Tables,’ purchased by him in 1635, and containing a list in his handwriting of works on astronomy (Companion to British Almanac, 1837, p. 28) . ”

“ A poultice of tea-leaves was tied over the left ear, as if for the relief of pain, and a post-mortem examination showed death to have resulted from an effusion of blood on the brain. A verdict of ‘sudden death from natural causes’ was returned. Thus closed a life which had not yet lasted fifty years, and held the promise of even more than it had already performed. ”

“ ANDERSON, GEORGE (fl. 1740) , was a mathematician, about whom nothing is known beyond what is contained in eight letters addressed by him to the celebrated mathematician, William Jones (father of Sir W. Jones, the Orientalist) , which were printed from the Macclesfield papers in 1841. They give proof of singular ability in treating the most advanced mathematical problems of the time, and by many indications show the writer (contrary to an editorial surmise) to have occupied a respectable position in life. ”

“ By these discoveries meteorology was constituted a science. They excited a strong interest, were immediately and widely discussed, and, with some minor deductions, made good their footing. From meteorology Dalton progressed naturally to chemistry. One of his leading mental characteristics was his proneness and power to realise distinctly what he thought about. His meditations on the atmospheric gases had led him to conceive them as composed of atoms, each surrounded by a very diffuse envelope of heat. ”