ii8 th:e popular science monthly. 



nitude of the field opened to her, "I seemed to have resumed the 

 perseverance and energy of my youth, and began to write with cour- 

 asre, thousfh I did not think I should live to finish even the sketch I 

 had made, and which I intended to publish under the name of * Mo- 

 lecular and Microscopic Science,' and assumed as my motto, ^ Deus 

 magnus in magnis, maximus in minimis ' (' God great in great things, 

 greatest in the least '), from Saint Augustine." 



This list of Mrs. Somerville's principal publications does not in- 

 clude all, nor even the most difiicult of her works, for she produced, 

 also, monographs on the " Analytical Attraction of Spheroids," " The 

 Form and Rotation of the Earth," " The Tides of the Ocean and 

 Atmosphere," " and, besides many others of equally abstruse nature, 

 a treatise of two hundred and forty-six pages ' On Curves and Sur- 

 faces of the Higher Orders,' which she herself tells us she wrote 

 coti amore, to fill up her morning hours while spending her winter in 

 Southern Italy." 



With all these labors, and this concentration of her mind on the 

 most difficult problems of physics and mathematics, Mrs. Somerville 

 shone in the domestic circle, and enjoyed society and its amusements. 

 " In reading the personal recollections of this wonderful woman," says 

 " Nature," " nothing strikes one more than the ordinary and even com- 

 monplace conditions under which her great intellect advanced to ma- 

 turity. In her case, the only exceptional features were her natural 

 gifts, and her perseverance in cultivating them. Although ' the one 

 woman of her time, and jDerhaps of all times,' so successfully did she 

 conceal her learning under a delicate feminine exterior, a shy manner, 

 and the practical qualities of an efficient mistress of a household, 

 coupled with the graceful, artistic accomplishments of an elegant 

 woman of the world, that ordinary visitors, who had sought her as a 

 prodigy, came away disappointed that she looked and behaved like 

 any other materfamillas, and talked just like other people." Mrs. 

 Marcet wrote to her, announcing her election to a scientific society 

 of Geneva: "You receive great honors, my dear friend, but that 

 which you confer on our sex is still greater, for, with talents and 

 acquirements of masculine magnitude, you unite the most sensitive 

 and retiring modesty of the female sex ; indeed, I know not any 

 woman, perhaps I might say any human being, who would support 

 so much applause without feeling the weakness of vanity." Miss 

 Somerville says in the " Recollections " : " It would be almost in- 

 credible were I to describe how much my mother contrived to do 

 in the course of the day. When ray sister and I were small chil- 

 dren, although busily engaged in writing for the press, she used to 

 teach us for three hours every morning, besides managing her house 

 carefully, reading the newspapers (for she always was a keen and, I 

 must add, a liberal politician), and the most important new books on 

 all subjects, grave and gay. In addition to all this, she freely visited 



