for their eminent scientific character, but for the extraordinary fascinations of style which held the auditors spell-bound. One of his most popular publications was Chemistry of a Candle, a Course of Six Lectures.

Whewell.

WILLIAM WHEWELL, D. D., 1795-1866, distinguished himself as a writer on a great variety of subjects, though he was mainly known by his writings on the natural sciences.

Whewell was educated at Cambridge, where he was successively Fellow, Professor, and Vice-Chancellor. He was a man of the most extraordinarily diversified attainments. No subject seemed to be too recondite to be beyond his reach. Many stories are still current in Cambridge concerning his ready information on every subject that could possibly be brought up in conversation. To him was applied the saying that science was his forte and omniscience his foible. It must be added, however, that he was not always loath to display his knowledge. At the same time he was in no sense superficial. It may be said of him that he never left a subject without getting clear and accurate Ideas upon it.

Whewell's works correspond to his attainments in their variety and power. While Tutor and Fellow, he published several mathematical text-books, prominent among which is his Dynamics. The most widely known of his works are: Astronomy and General Physics considered in Reference to Natural Philosophy; the History of the Inductive Sciences; The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences; The Elements of Morality; The Plurality of Worlds; History of Moral Philosophy in England.

Whewell was one of the few men who are equally at home in the exact and the historical sciences, and able to do both classes justice without allowing the one to override the other. Hence the great value and the success of his History of the Inductive Sciences. Notwithstanding its errors and its occasionally illiberal spirit, it is, together with the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, a wonderful effort to coordinate the scattered and even hostile departments of human knowledge. Whewell is also the author of a great number of scattered pamphlets and scientific papers of decided value. Nor was he insensible to the claims of belles-lettres, as is shown by his translation of Goethe's Herman and Dorothea, and Auerbach's Professor's Wife, and his general fondness for German literature and philosophy.

Babbage.

CHARLES BABBAGE, 1790-1871, was chiefly distinguished as a mathematician.

the same.

Babbage was a graduate of Cambridge University, and for eleven years professor in His publications are exceedingly numerous, and, though nearly all mathematical, take a wide range through almost every department both of pure and applied mathematics. The whole number of his separate publications is forty-seven, many of them large volumes. A large proportion of these are applications of mathematical truths and formula to machinery, for the purpose of facilitating the arts of practical life. One of Babbage's works, which occupied him for many years, and on which, by the aid of the Government, $85,000 was expended, was his famous Calculating Machine. The Government having withdrawn its patronage, the ingenious apparatus was dropped.

Of his works not purely scientific, the following may be named: Sketches of the Philosophic Characters of Dr. Wollaston and Sir Humphry Davy; The Proportion of Births of the Two Sexes; Economy of Manufactures and Machinery; The Exposition of 1851, or Views of the Industry, Science, and Government of England; and The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise. The last named especially is the one by which he is most known to the generality of readers. In it he discusses particularly the subject of Miracles. In 1864, he published an autobiography, a large 8vo, under the title of Passages from the Life of a Philosopher. At the close, he gives a list of eighty detached papers which he contributed to different scientific journals.

Mrs. Somerville.

MRS. MARY SOMERVILLE, 1780

a daughter of Admiral Fair

fax, stands at the head of female devotees to science.

She was elected a member of several societies in England and elsewhere, and honored with a pension for her services to science. Her four great works are: Mechan ism of the Heavens, an abridgment of La Place, but by no means slavishly following the great Frenchman; On the Connection of the Physical Sciences, an admirable manual, which has gone through numerous editions; Physical Geography, which is scarcely less popular; and On Molecular and Microscopic Science, published in 1869, when the author must have been nearly ninety years of age. There is a disagreement among authorities, however, as to the year of her birth, some fixing it at 1780, and others at about 1790. In any case, Mrs. Somerville's prolonged activity is remarkable.

Darwin.

the grandson of the poet

CHARLES DARWIN, F. R. S., 1809 and naturalist Erasmus Darwin, is himself one of the most eminent naturalists of the day.

Mr. Darwin accompanied the royal Exploring Expedition of Her Majesty's ship the Beagle, in 1831-1836, and published thereafter his first work, Voyage of a Naturalist Round the World. It was well received in all quarters, both for the freshness of its information and the rare beauty and skill of the descriptions. "The author is a firstrate landscape painter with the pen, and the dreariest solitudes are made to teem with interest."- London Quarterly. He edited also the Zoology of the Expedition. Another work which gained him high reputation as a naturalist was a Monograph of the Family Cirripedia, including the Barnacle. Other works have followed, which have been read with avidity, not merely by naturalists and scientific men, but by that far wider intellectual class who are interested in the higher generalizations of the sci ences. Mr. Darwin has a singular facility in expressing his ideas in language easily understood and in disposing his matter for artistic effect.

His latest works are: The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication; The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection; The Descent of Man. His scientific opinions, as contained in the works last named, have met with emphatic dissent. But all critics, both friends and foes, have admired the clearness and beauty of his style, and the wonderful variety and extent of his knowledge.

THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY, F. R. S., 1825, Professor of Natu ral History in the Royal School of Mines, London, has attained an

eminence as a naturalist almost, if not quite, equal to that of Mr. Darwin, and he belongs to the same school of opinion.

Professor Huxley's contributions to natural science have been numerous and valuable. Among those of a recent and comparatively popular character are Man's Place in Nature, Lectures on Comparative Anatomy, Lessons on Elementary Physiology.

Professor Owen is a native of England. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He has occupied several professional positions, succeeding Sir Charles Bell in the Royal College of Surgeons, and he is now Director of the Natural History Department of the British Museum. Ilis written contributions to science are immense. Those of his works which are of most general interest are: History of British Fossil Mammals and Birds; On the Archetype and Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton Parthenogenesis; The Anatomy of the Vertebrates. Professor Owen is an opponent of Darwinism, defending the mutability of species by virtue of inherent tendencies, and not by change of external circumstances. His works, even to the lay reader, are fascinating through their vigor and clearness of style.

REV. JOHN GEORGE WOOD, 1827 ralist.

is an accomplished natu

Mr. Wood was born in London, and educated at Oxford, where he took his M. A. in 1851. He has written some charming works on natural history: Bees, their Habits and Management; Sketches and Anecdotes of Animal Life; The Common Objects of the Sea-Shore; My Feathered Friends; Illustrations of Natural History, 3 vols.; Boy's Own Book of Natural History: Athletic Sports and Recreations for Boys; Natural History Picture-Book for Children; Common Objects of the Microscope; Glimpses into Petland; Our Garden Friends and Foes; Homes without Hands; Fresh and Salt Water Aquariums; Bible Animals; Old and New Testament History in Simple Language, etc., etc.

CHARLES WATERTON, 1782-1865, was an enterprising traveller and naturalist.

Mr. Waterton was born at Walton Hall, in Yorkshire. He was the head of an ancient Catholic family which traces its lineage on one side to Sir Thomas More, and on the other side to the time of the Norman Conquest. Mr. Waterton lived to a green old age, maintaining both physical and intellectual vigor to the very day of his death, in his eighty-third year. His publications are Wanderings in South America and the North-West of the United States, containing observatious on natural history, with directions for the preservation of birds, etc.; Essays on Natural History, with an Autobiography of the Author; Ornithological Letter to William Swainson.

PETER MARK ROGET, 1779-1869, of French, or rather of Genevese extraction, was educated at Edinburgh, and held several medical and professional appointments. Ile published one or two scientific works, On Animal and Vegetable Physiology, on Elec

tricity, Galvanism, etc. To the reader and student of English, however, Roget is known exclusively through his Thesaurus of English Words. This valuable work, intended to facilitate composition by classifying ideas and their corresponding expressions, has passed through numerous editions, and now forms an indispensable manual in every literary workshop.

PHILIP HENRY GOSSE, F. R. S., 1810, was born at Worcester. He has resided one year in Alabama, three years in Lower Canada, and eight in Newfoundland. He is a scientific naturalist, and has contributed largely by his writings to make the study of natural science popular in families and schools. The following are his principal publications: The Canadian Naturalist; Birds of Jamaica; A Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica; Natural History of Birds, Mammals, Reptiles, and Fishes; Ocean Described; British Ornithology; Rivers of the Bible; History of the Jews; Assyria; Text-Book of Zoology for Schools; A Naturalist's Rambles on the Devonshire Coast; The Aquarium, an Unveiling of the Wonders of the Deep; A Handbook of the Marine Aquarium; Manual of Marine Zoology; Tenby, a Seaside Holiday; Omphalos, an Attempt to untie the Geological Knot; History of British Sea-Anemones; Evenings at the Microscope, etc.

Sir Charles studied at Oxford, for the law, but soon abandoned that profession for the science with which his name is indissolubly connected. He was at one time Professor of Geology in King's College, London, and has been twice elected President of the Geological Society.

His chief works are: Principles of Geology, 1830-2; Elements of Geology, 1838; Travels in North America, 1845; A Second Visit to the United States, 1849; The Antiquity of Man, 1863. Lyell is, in the strictest sense of the term, a scientific inquirer; his method and his aim are purely scientific. At the same time, by reason of his pleasing style and clear statement, he has been the chief agent in impressing the claims of the science upon the attention of the reading public. His earliest work and his latest The Principles of Geology and The Antiquity of Manmark, each of them, a new era in science. The latter, especially, has placed the department of anthropology upon an entirely new footing. Lyell's two volumes of travels are chiefly taken up with scientific details, but are also rich in shrewd and just observations upon the society and institutions of the country whose geological features he is exploring.

Tyndall.

JOHN TYNDALL, 1820, is one of the most eminent and best known scientists of the present day.

Tyndall has occupied for a number of years the chair of Natural Philosophy in the Government School of Mines. In addition to his labors as an instructor and an investigator, he has published several popular works on science which have spread his name wherever the English language is spoken, and have been translated into many continental languages. His special contributions to the Royal Society and the Philosophical Transactions are numerous and extremely valuable.

Tyndall is the author of two interesting works on Switzerland, entitled The Glaciers

of the Alps, and Mountaineering in 1861, in which brilliant description of hazardous ascensions is skilfully blended with scientific information. His best known works, however, are on Heat as a Mode of Motion, and on Sound. These can scarcely be called popular, unless by reason of the vigor and clearness of their style, as they contain some of the most important discoveries and theories in physics that have been made in modern times. Tyndall belongs to that growing class of investigators — Iluxley is another example who unite the greatest originality and accuracy of research with the happiest style of composition. His monograph on Heat may be set down as marking a new epoch in that department.

has made a special study of

JAMES D. FORBES, F. R. S., 1809 the glacial formations of the Alps, and has published some volumes of explorations, which are as attractive as a romance.

The following are some of his works: Travels through the Alps; Norway and its Glaciers. The work on the Alps "abounds with daring and hazardous adventures, contains notices of occasional catastrophies that have befallen less fortunate explorers, presents interesting discoveries with new deductions, and is clothed in a style and diction entirely in keeping with the beauty and grandeur of the subject.” — Silliman's Journal, Prof. Forbes was born at Calvinton, near Edinburgh. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh, and was Professor of Natural Philosophy there from 1833 to 1860. He then became Principal of St. Salvator's and St. Leonard's College, St. Andrew's.

THOMAS SOUTHWOOD SMITH, M. D., 1788-1861, a celebrated London physician, was born in Somersetshire, and studied medicine in the University of Edinburgh. He was appointed Physician to the London Fever Hospital in 1825, and for a quarter of a century took a prominent part in the sanitary measures of the metropolis, and in procuring legislation in regard to the public health. He was one of the founders of the Westminster Review, and by his vigorous articles in this review broke up many established abuses. He was chiefly instrumental in ruining the business of the "resurrection men." His separate publications were: The Use of the Dead to the Living; Discourse on the Development of the Principles of the Human Mind; Illustrations of the Divine Government. His utilitarian notions were carried to an extreme, as may be judged from the following instance: "I became acquainted with Dr. Southwood Smith. On visiting him, we saw an object which I have often heard celebrated, and had thought would be revolting, but found, on the contrary, an agreeable sight; this is the skeleton of Jeremy Bentham. It was at Bentham's request that the skeleton, dressed in the same dress he habitually wore, stuffed out to an exact resemblance of life, and with a portrait-mask in wax, -the best I ever saw, sits there as assistant to Dr. Smith in the entertainment of his guests, and companion of his studies. The figure leans a little forward, resting the hands on a stout stick which Bentham always carried, and had named 'Dapple.' The attitude is quite easy, the expression on the whole mild, winning, yet highly individual." - Margaret Puller D Ossoli

Dr. Wilson has been for many years Professor of History and English Literature in University College, Toronto, Canada. His works on the early history of the Western races are among the most valuable contributions to that department of literature. The