1 2 Annals of the Philosophical Club 



1824 he migrated to Edinburgh. Here he continued his scientific 

 studies for ten years, till he returned to his native city as Professor 

 of Chemistry at Anderson's University College. But in 1837 he 

 went to London as Professor of Chemistry at University College. 

 Here he had a distinguished career, making valuable researches on 

 phosphorus, hydrogen, and the passage of gases through films and 

 small apertures, and discovering the law of the diffusion of gases. 

 Among his books his Elements of Chemistry received high praise. 

 In 1855 he was appointed Master of the Mint, and held that office 

 until his death (unmarried) in Gordon Square, Sept. nth, 1869. 



PROFESSOR JOHN THOMAS GRAVES, a distinguished mathematician, 

 was born in Dublin, Dec. 4th, 1806, and educated at Trinity College, 

 where he showed excellence as a classic. Then incorporating at 

 Oxford, he took the degree of M.A., and in 1831 was called to the 

 English Bar, going on the Western Circuit. He was elected Professor 

 of Jurisprudence at University College, London, and wrote on legal 

 subjects, but won his chief distinction as a mathematician, for he 

 aided Sir W. Rowan Hamilton in his work on conjugate factors, 

 elaborating the newly discovered quaternions and the icosian calculus. 

 He died in 1870, after writing many papers on these and similar 

 subjects, and left his very valuable mathematical library to Univer- 

 sity College, London. 



SIR WILLIAM SNOW HARRIS, also distinguished for electrical 

 researches, was a solicitor's son, born at Plymouth, April ist, 1781, 

 who studied medicine and for a time was in practice at his native 

 place. But his growing interest in electricity led him, after his 

 marriage in 1824, to give up professional work, for he had already 

 devised a new form of lightning conductor for ships and made 

 improvements in the mariner's compass. His conductor, after 

 encountering official opposition, was adopted by the Navy in 1841, 

 and he received an annuity of ^300. Six years later he was knighted 

 and obtained a grant of 5000 for this and other services, and was 

 appointed in 1860 scientific adviser to the Government. Elected 

 into the Royal Society in 1831, he was awarded the Copley Medal 

 in 1835, and died at Plymouth on Jan. 22nd, 1867. 



SIR JOHN FREDERICK WILLIAM HERSCHEL, the great astronomer, 

 was a son of an equally distinguished father, Sir William Herschel. 

 He was born at Slough on March 7th, 1792, and went, at the age 

 of seventeen, to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated 

 in 1813 as Senior Wrangler and First Smith's Prizeman, and obtained 

 a Fellowship. As an undergraduate, he was intimate with William 

 Whewell, George Peacock, and Charles Babbage, and made a resolu- 

 tion with the second and third to leave the world wiser than they 

 found it. This they did, for, by introducing the differential notation 

 and continental methods of analysis, they restored mathematical 



