598 



magnetism whether entirely upon the surface of the earth, or 

 within it, or in external space which seem to be the ultimate con- 

 clusions to which this theory has hitherto attained or is capable of 

 attaining. This memoir presents a striking illustration of that happy 

 union of analytical skill with philosophical power for which his later 

 writings were so remarkable, and which puts them in striking con- 

 trast with the obscurity and extreme compression of some of his 

 earlier productions. 



Gauss was born on the 30th of April, 1777. After completing his 

 education at the Collegium Carolinum, he proceeded to the Uni- 

 versity of Gottingen in 1795 ; he graduated at Helmstadt in 1799, 

 and afterwards resided as a private teacher in Brunswick until the 

 year 1807, when he was appointed Professor in the University of 

 Gottingen, and Director of the Observatory ; a situation which he 

 continued to retain for the remainder of his life. He was twice 

 married, and by his first wife, who died in 1809, he has left one sur- 

 viving son, and by his second, two sons and a daughter, Theresa, to 

 whom he was tenderly attached, who nursed him, when his health 

 began to decline, with the greatest affection and care. 



During the last year of his life the decay of old age began to 

 manifest itself in a disease of the heart, and the usual symptoms 

 which accompany it ; and he died in great tranquillity on the 

 morning of the 23rd of February last. " I assisted," writes the 

 Baron von Waltershausen, one of the most distinguished of his 

 pupils, in a letter communicating these facts, " with others of his 

 friends and pupils, in placing his body in his coffin, in binding a 

 laurel crown around his head, and in discharging with filial love and 

 reverence the last honours of the great man, whose name is destined 

 to take its place with those of Archimedes and Newton in the history 

 of the exacter sciences." On the 26th of February, his body, which 

 had lain in state in the Rotunda of the Observatory, was followed 

 to the grave by the whole University, and by a vast multitude of 

 friends and admirers. 



GEORGE SIMON OHM was born on the 16th of March, 1787, at 

 Erlangen in Bavaria, where his ancestors had been known as pros- 

 perous and skilful locksmiths for several generations. His father's 

 intention was, that he, as well as his younger brother, Martin 



