Miscellanies. 221 
th men of science abroad, is indebted to no one individual—with the ex- 
Dr. Bowditch was born on the 26th of March, 1773, at Salem, in the State of 
Massachusetts. In his education, he had no aher advantages than those afforded 
by the common town schools, which at that period were comparatively meagre, 
and inadequate to the great purposes of disciplining and storing the mind with 
know 
At cecal age, he was placed as a clerk, or apprentice, in the store of a mer- 
chant in Salem; and while in that situation, it is said, he used to employ his leisure 
time in his ite science of Mathematics, and various practical subjects connected 
with it. 
His attention was directed, at an early age, to the Principia of his great master, 
But, as this work was published in the Latin language, which he had 
not then ‘Iearned, he was obliged to begin his reading of it, by asking some of the 
Cambridge students, during their vacations at Salem, to enplaa it to him in Eng- 
lish. He soon discovered, however, that his own haemo of the subject, with 
the aid of the ssthebeantinald processes and diagrams on the pages of the Principia, 
gil; and he was soon convinced that his shortest course would be to acquire a 
knowledge of the language for himself; which by great perseverance he accom- 
rae and was enabled to read any work of science in it. And thus he was an- 
other instance, like that of the ancient Greek writer, who relates of himself that 
Romans, by his knowledge of the subjects which they discussed in it. He after- 
wards learned French, for the purpose of having access to the treasures of French 
ical science ; and, at a late period of his life, he acquired some knowledge 
of the ine te anguage. 
A little circumstance connected with his study of Newton’s Principia, will not 
be uninteresting to the learned and the unlearned. The Latin copy of it, which 
made no pretension to science, and would never have thought of bare the work ; 
but he had preserved it, in aa little library of popular works, as a book, that pos- 
~— ‘ait one sd be of use to some person. By ar feces coincidence of 
e volume came to the knowledge of Dr. <P and his friend, 
upon being snail to lend it, with great liberality presented it man 
who, above all others in the country, was the best able to make = most advanta- 
geous of it. So far as great effects may be justly said to flow from-small causes, 
rt preservation of this single 
and apparently worthless volume, pi an cases: who could make no use of it! 
ditch sometimes alluded to thi e; and, on ee Ite — 
ing a ale of his La Place to a friend, who declined taking it because h no bet- 
able to read it than his mercantile friend could the Principia, pe seer insisted 
in its acceptance ; and, in the last resort, reminded his friend, that if no useful 
to him personally, it might, perhaps, be placed in the hands of some one, to 
—— might sed valuable, as the copy of the Principia had been to himself. 
1 
pie 98 al talent, in a town eminently distinguished for nautical enterprise, 
could not fail of dink ealled into exercise, in connection with the art of navi 
tion; and a Jarge portion of the well Kcnitooys skill of the navigators of Salem may 
justly be considered as the fruits of the instruction which may be traced, direetly 
or indirectly, to his scientific acquirements. He was, besides, a practical naviga- 
