688 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Tiary 29, 1817. We are fortunate in having from his own hands a 

 record of his early years. At the request of Mr. A. McAdie, of 

 the Signal Service, Prof. Ferrel wrote, in 1887, an account of his 

 life, and from this Mr. McAdie prepared a biographical sketch 

 that was published in the American Meteorological Journal for 

 February, 1888. The same journal for December, 1891, contains 

 several notices of Ferrel's works by Newcomb, Abbe, and others, 

 read at the October meeting of the New England Meteorological 

 Society. A list of his published writings is given in the Journal 

 for October of the same year. The manuscript autobiography 

 has been presented by Mr. McAdie to the Library of Harvard Col- 

 lege, and the following account of Ferrel's youth is prepared from 

 it. Although never widely known, even among our scientific 

 men, his work since his fortieth year gives a record of the latter 

 part of his life ; and for that reason the narrative of his earlier 

 years is here given more fully. It is one that may certainly 

 inspire young men who labor under discouragement ; and per- 

 chance it may also lead the more generous of our readers to seek 

 out and lend a helping hand to those whose lines are hard and 

 who are working earnestly to help themselves ; not that all such 

 shall become Academicians, but that well-timed help extended in 

 such directions is the best investment that a man can make for 

 himself and for his country. 



Ferrel's father was of Irish and English descent ; his mother 

 came from a German family. They lived in a simple way in the 

 country, and the boy went to a common district school. In 1829 

 the family moved across the narrow western arm of Maryland 

 into Berkeley County, Virginia (now "West Virginia). There the 

 son was kept closely at work, except while at school for two win- 

 ters, the school-house being a rude log cabin, in which he went 

 "through the arithmetic and the English grammar," and then re- 

 mained out of school till 1839. Having mastered his school-books, 

 he had nothing further to study except a weekly newspaper, the 

 Virginia Republican, published at Martinsburg ; this he waited 

 for eagerly, to read its occasional scientific items. 



While thus engaged on the farm young Ferrel saw somewhere 

 a copy of Park's Arithmetic, with a sketch of mensuration at its 

 close. Of this he writes : " At the sight of the diagrams I was at 

 once fired with an intense desire to have the book. But I had no 

 money, and at this time I was too diffident to ask my father for 

 even a half-dollar, or to let him know that I wanted the book. 

 Soon afterward I earned fifty cents in the harvest-field of one of 

 the neighbors, and with this I determined to buy the book. The 

 first time I had a chance to go to Martinsburg I inquired for it at 

 a store, but learned that its price was sixty-two cents. I told 

 the store-keejDer I had only fifty cents, and so he let me have it at 



