c5 Memoirs of J. Bernoulli. 



the vocation of an adjunct, with a falaryof 600 rubles, and 

 the promife of being promoted in the courfe of a year. Tie 

 accepted thefe offers with joy, and quitted Venice in the 

 month of May 1786, taking the route of Swifferland to 

 revifit his country and family before he went to Ruffia, 

 where he was to eftablifh himfelf, in confequence of his en- " 

 gagement, for at leaf! three years. 



• Scarcely had he reached Peterfburg when his ruling paf- 

 fion for travelling, or, what amounts to the fame thing, hrs. 

 defire of acquiring knowledge, made him conceive the idea 

 of participating in a fea voyage planned at that time, and for 

 the execution of which feveral veffcls, defined to fail under 

 the command of M. Mouloufki, were then fitting out. Mr. 

 Bernoulli ardently wifhed to have a fhare in this expedition 

 as aftronomer, and converfed on that fubjecl with the chief 

 of the expedition, who received the propofal with plcafure, 

 and promifed to get the conditions they had agreed on 

 fan&ioned; but Mr. Bernoulli's friends induced him, though 

 with great difficulty, to renounce a voyage the fatigues of 

 which his weak and delicate conftitution could not have 

 fupportcd. 



Having abandoned this plan, which had given him much 

 pain and uncafinefs, he applied himfelf with the whole acti- 

 vity of his foul to phyfical mathematics. He laboured with 

 great diligence, and furpaffed fo much the hopes conceived 

 of him by the academy, that, before the expiration of the 

 time fixed in his agreement, he found himfelf honoured with 

 the title of ordinary academician. In the fhort fpace of 

 little more than two years, he prefented and read eight me- 

 moirs, infertec' in the fix firft volumes of the Nova Ada Aca- 

 demics Scientiarum Imperialis Petropolitante, which difplay 

 great penetration, a precife and acute mind, a folid judge- 

 ment, and much more addrefs in the management of analy- 

 tical formulae than could have been expected from a geo- 

 meter fo young, according to appearance, in the fecret of 

 analyfis and the refources of calculation. 



In 



