Royal Society. 409 



have there made rapid progress in the elementary branches of educa- 

 tion. His academical studies were pursued in St. John's College, 

 Cambridge, where he highly distinguished himself both by his ma- 

 thematical and his classical acquirements. Under his father's tuition 

 he applied himself with great diligence to his profession as a pupil 

 of St. George's Hospital, to which, at a subsequent period, he was 

 appointed one of the Physicians. He was elected a Fellow of this 

 Society in the year 1791 : and in 1797, became a Fellow of the 

 College of Physicians. He died on the 19th of February, 1845, 

 aged 77. 



His contributions to the Philosophical Transactions consist of two 

 papers ; the first in 1796, on the influence of cold on the health of 

 the inhabitants of London ; in which he shows, in opposition to the 

 popular prejudices then prevalent, that a severe winter is attended 

 with greatly increased mortality. The second paper is entitled 

 " On the heat of Juty 1825, together with some remarks on sensible 

 cold," in which he points out the causes which influence our sensa- 

 tions of temperature, and more especially the powerful effect of wind 

 in increasing the rate of cooling, and consequently of creating the 

 sensation of cold in the human body, independently of any actual 

 depression in the temperature of the air. 



John Frederic Daniell was born in Essex Street, Strand, 

 12th of March, 1790. His father, George Daniell, Esq., Bencher 

 of the Inner Temple, provided him with a good classical education 

 under his own roof. At an early age he showed fondness for the 

 pursuits of science, and was placed in the sugar refining establish- 

 ment of a relative, where he introduced important improvements in 

 the manufacture. The pursuits of business, however, were r uncon- 

 genial to his tastes, and he soon relinquished this occupation. In 

 1813 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, of which body 

 he continued till the day of his death a zealous and active member. 



The services he rendered to more than one branch of science 

 were of no ordinary description. From an early period of his life 

 his mind M'as directed to the study of meteorology, at a time when it 

 consisted of little more than a vast accumulation of facts and ob- 

 servations. 



In the year 1823 he published the first edition of his ' Meteoro- 

 logical Essays,' which constituted a new epoch in the science, and 

 still continues the standard work of reference, the third edition of 

 which he had nearly completed at the time of his death. This was 

 the first attempt to embrace in a general view the scattered facts of 

 the science, and by synthetically applying the known laws which re- 

 gulate the constitution of gases and vapours, the principles of their 

 equilibrium, and the distribution of heat among them, to give a con- 

 nected account of the main phenomena of the earth's atmosphere. 

 He insisted on the paramount importance of extreme accuracy in 

 the construction of the instruments employed for such inquiries, and 

 gave directions by which the needful accuracy could with certainty 

 and facility be obtained. By the invention of the hygrometer, which 

 bears his name, he first conferred precision on the means of ascer- 



Phil. Mag. S. 3. Vol. 28. No. 188. May 1846. 2 F 



