Obituary. — M. Niels Henrik Abel. 77 



To T. Westwood, of Princes-street, Leicester-square, Middlesex, 

 watchmaker, for his improvements in watches and time-keepers. — ■ 

 23rd of September. — 6 months. 



To I. Brown, Gloucester-street, Clerkenwell, watchmaker, for his 

 improvements applicable to watches and other horological machines. 

 23rd of September. — 2 months. 



To H. Tyler, Warwick-lane, brass-founder, for his improvements in 

 the construction of water-closet. — 23rd of September. — 2 months. 



Obituary. — m. niels henrik abel. 

 The mathematical sciences have sustained a great loss in the prema- 

 ture death of M. Abel, whose brilliant discoveries, when quite young, 

 raised the highest expectations of the fruits of his maturer years. 

 Although his labours are but partially known in this country, we hope 

 that a short account of his life will not be unacceptable to our readers. 

 Niels Henrik Abel was born on the 2oth of August 1 802, at Frindoe, in 

 the province of Christiansand, on the western coast of Norway, where 

 his father was a clergyman. He showed at first no marks of genius ; 

 but at the age of 16, being then at the public school of Christiania, his 

 extraordinary talent for mathematics at once began to develop itself, 

 and he rapidly studied Euler's Introduction to Analysis, his Differen- 

 tial and Integral Calculus, the works of Lacroix, Francceur, Poisson, 

 Gauss, and especially those of La Grange. He next entered the Univer- 

 sity of the same city. Having lost his father, and being without for- 

 tune, he availed himself of the assistance usually granted there to the 

 poorer students ; and, besides, had afterwards an allowance conferred 

 on him by the Government. In 1820 he published his first paper, in- 

 titled " A general method of finding functions of a variable quantity, 

 a property of these functions being expressed by an equation between 

 two variable quantities." Some time after he imagined he had suc- 

 ceeded in finding the general solution of equations of the fifth degree. 

 Having perceived his error, he resolved not to desist until he had 

 either accomplished that solution, or demonstrated the impossibility 

 of the general solution of equations of a higher degree than the 

 fourth. In the latter task he succeeded : his paper was printed in 

 182-4, at Christiania, in the French language. At the recommenda- 

 ion of some Professors of Christiania, he now obtained from the 

 Government an allowance for two years, in order to prosecute his 

 studies abroad. Having spent the allotted time principally at Berlin 

 and Paris, he returned to Christiania. During his absence from his 

 country he published some excellent papers, among which those on 

 Elliptic Functions, whiiih have been honoured with the highest praise 

 by the distinguished veteran Le Gendre, the discoverer of this branch 

 of analysis. It is well known that at the same time, and unknown 

 to him, another young mathematician. Professor Jacobi of Konigs- 

 berg, who has just published an elaborate work, intitled " Funda- 

 menta Nova Theorite Functionum Ellipticarum : Regiomonti, 1829," 

 began to cultivate with the greatest success the same abstruse part 

 of mathematical analysis. After his return to Christiania) M. Abel 

 had at first no regular appointment ; and only a .short time before 



his 



