ANNALS 



OF 



PHILOSOPHY. 



NOVEMBER, 1818. 



Article I. 



Biographical Account of Sir Torbern Bergman, Professor of 

 Chemistry in Upsala. By Thomas Thomson, M.D. F R.S. 



1 AM induced to draw up the following account of Bergman 

 because I consider the events of his life, spent as it was in the 

 tranquillity of the University of Upsala, as furnishing an admir- 

 able lesson to the young chemist of the result of unremitting- 

 industry when united with a good education and excellent abili- 

 ties, and its ultimate tendency to overcome all the obstacles 

 thrown in the way of its possessor by the jealous rivalship of 

 contemporaries, or the malignant obstructions of those who 

 already occupy the stations to which a poor man of genius natu- 

 rally looks forward. My knowledge of the biographical facts is 

 derived partly from the oration of Hjelm, delivered in the Royal 

 Academy of Sciences at Stockholm, on May 3, 1786; and 

 partly from the eloge of Bergman drawn up by Condorcet, and 

 printed in the Memoirs of the French Academy. 



Torbern Olof Bergman was born on March 9, 1735, at Cathe- 

 rinberg, in West Gothland. His father, Barthold Bergman, 

 was a revenue officer in the district of Wadsbo, and the province 

 of Skaraborg. His mother, Sarah Hagg, was a merchant's 

 daughter in Gothenburg, who had been previously married to 

 another revenue officer. Torbern Bergman was the eldest child 

 of this second marriage ; and his mother bore afterwards two 

 other children, a son and a daughter. 



1 he first part of Bergman's education was conducted at home. 

 In the harvest of 174d he went to the school of Skara. There 

 he remained for six years, studying with great zeal and much 



Vol. XII. N° V. X 



