xxxviii Annual Report of the Council. 



of making himself acquainted with mechanical principles and 

 details. In fact, he seems to have prepared himself for each 

 invention by a careful study of the suriject, both theoretically and 

 experimentally ; it is therefore not surprising to find that, in spite 

 of his busy life, he devoted much time to scientific researches. 

 Even as far back as 1840, he experimented on the production of 

 electricity by means of jets of steam, and made some interesting 

 discoveries, which have, however, led to no commercial develop- 

 ments. He received many honours, not only from our own 

 learned societies, but also from foreign countries. 



In 1887 he was created Baron Armstrong of Cragside. He 

 died 27th December, 1900. Lord Armstrong had been an 



lionorary member of our Society since 1887. 



C. E. S. 



Charles Hermite was born in 1821. Already, whilst a 

 student at the Ecole Polytechnique, he entered into a mathe- 

 matical correspondence with the veteran Jacobi, and received 

 from the latter the most flattering encouragement. His earlier 

 researches had reference to the theory of algebraic forms, and he 

 took part with Cayley and Sylvester in the development of the 

 theory of invariants ; he also occupied himself with the theory 

 of elliptic and other cognate functions. He became a member 

 of the Institut de France in 1856, and in 1862 was appointed 

 Professor in the Ecole Normale. He subsequently occupied 

 posts in the Ecole Polytechnique and in the Sorbonne ; and 

 greatly developed and modernised the teaching of advanced 

 mathematics in these institutions. Among his later achieve- 

 ments may be mentioned the proof that the number e is 

 transcendental. That e is irrational had long been known ; but 

 the definite proof that it is not an algebraical number at all, i.e., 

 that it cannot be the root of any algebraic equation with integral 

 co-efficients, was reserved for Hermite. This paved the way for 

 Lindemann's demonstration of the transcendental nature ot tp, 

 which appears to be the last word of mathematics on the secular 

 problem of " squaring the circle." Hermite's scientific activity 



