830 Mary Somerville. 



that year appeared for the first time the very 

 evening we arrived. On the following, and during 

 many evenings while it was visible, we used to row 

 in a small boat a little way from shore, in order to 

 see it to greater advantage. Nothing could be more 

 poetical than the clear starlit heavens with this 

 beautiful comet reflected, nay, almost repeated, in 

 the calm glassy water of the gulf. The perfect 

 silence and stillness of the scene was very impres- 

 sive. 



I was now unoccupied, and felt the necessity of 

 having something to do, desultory reading being in- 

 sufficient to interest me ; and as I had always con- 

 sidered the section on chemistry the weakest part of 

 the connection of the "Physical Sciences," I resolved 

 to write it anew. My daughters strongly opposed this, 

 saying, " Why not write a new book ? " They were 

 right ; it would have been lost time : so I followed 

 their advice, though it was a formidable undertaking 

 at my age, considering that the general character of 

 science had greatly changed. By the improved 

 state of the microscope, an invisible creation in the 

 air, the earth, and the water, had been brought 

 within the limits of human vision ; the microscopic 

 structure of plants and animals had been minutely 

 studied, and by synthesis many substances had been 

 formed of the elementary atoms similar to those 



