SKETCH OF CARL FRIED RICH GAUSS. 695 



ticularly in arithmetic, " the queen of mathematics." After com- 

 pleting his course at the university, Gauss spent a short time in 

 1798 at Helmstadt, consulting the library there, and enjoying the 

 society of his fellow-mathematician Pfaff. Having obtained a 

 full supply of notes, he returned to Brunswick, and employed 

 himself in the elaboration of the studies which have placed his 

 name high in the list of eminent mathematicians. 



In 1807 he was offered by the Czar of Russia a professorship 

 in the Academy of St. Petersburg ; but he declined the position, at 

 the instance of Olbers, and because he felt that such a professor- 

 ship would cramp his studies. His desire was to obtain the post 

 of astronomer at an observatory, so that he could spend all his 

 time on his observations and his studies for the advancement of 

 science. This desire was gratified in the same year, when he was 

 appointed Director of the Observatory and Professor of Astron- 

 omy at Gottingen. In this service he spent the rest of his life, 

 never sleeping away from under the roof of the building, except 

 in 1828, when he accepted an invitation to attend a meeting of the 

 natural philosophers in Berlin, and in 1854 — the year before his 

 death — when, on the opening of the railway to Hamburg, he for 

 the first time saw a locomotive. He consecrated all his time, says 

 Larousse, " his genius, and his indefatigable activity, to the most 

 abstract and profound researches in all branches of mathematics, 

 astronomy, and physics. Endowed with most favorable health, 

 possessing simple and modest tastes, so indifferent to display 

 that he never wore any of the numerous decorations that the 

 various governments decreed to him. Gauss had a gentle, up- 

 right, and correct character. Applying the greatest care to the 

 preparation of his briefest as well as of his most elaborate mem- 

 oirs, he would offer nothing to the public till it had received the 

 last finishing touches from the workman's hand. He had en- 

 graved on his seal a tree loaded with fruit, encircled with the 

 legend, ' Pauca, sed matura' (few, but ripe). And he left a large 

 number of works, which he did not consider mature enough to 

 publish," but which arrangements were made after his death for 

 having edited. " The genius of Gauss," Larousse continues, " was 

 essentially original. If he was treating of a subject which had 

 already engaged the attention of other students, it seemed as if 

 their works were wholly unknown to him. He had his own man- 

 ner of approaching the propositions, and his own method of treat- 

 ing them, and his solutions were absolutely new. These solutions 

 had the merit of being general, complete, and applicable to all 

 the cases that could be included under the question. Unfortu- 

 nately, the very originality of the methods, a particular mode of 

 notation, and the exaggerated, perhaps affected, laconicism of his 

 demonstrations, make the reading of Gauss's works extremely 



