OBITUARY NOTICES OF FELLOWS DECEASED 

 BETWEEN 30xH Nov. 1861 AND SOxn Nov. 1862. 



PETER BARLOW, Esq., was born at Norwich in October 1776, 

 and died at Charlton in Kent on the 1st of March 1862. After 

 going through an ordinary school education, he chose mathe- 

 matics as a special study, and obtained the place of Mathematical 

 Master, and subsequently that of Professor, in the Royal Military Aca- 

 demy at Woolwich. During the earlier part of his career he gave his 

 attention chiefly to pure mathematics ; and his first original work was 

 'On the Theory of Numbers,' which appeared in 1811. In that 

 work he shows an acquaintance with the writings of foreign mathe- 

 maticians to an extent at that time unusual. In 1814 he published 

 a Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary ; also his well-known 

 Mathematical Tables, which, besides other cognate matters of use and 

 interest, gives the factors, squares, cubes, square roots, cube roots, 

 and reciprocals of all numbers up to 10,000. This work having 

 passed out of print, and a decided opinion being entertained by some 

 discriminating authorities of the practical usefulness of its chief con- 

 tents, the tables, so far as indicated above, the factors excepted, were 

 republished in stereotype under the sanction of the Useful Know- 

 ledge Society in 1840. 



In 1817 Mr. Barlow published a work on the Strength of Ma- 

 terials, based on extended experimental inquiries carried on by him- 

 self. In this way he was brought into friendly relation with the 

 leading engineers and architects of his time, was much consulted in 

 reference to important works of construction, and served on more 

 than one Government Commission on great engineering questions. 

 He next turned his attention to the subject of magnetism in general, 

 and especially to the deviations of the compass-needle caused by 

 local attraction, and the best means of correcting it. His researches 

 form the subject of his f Essay on Magnetic Attractions,' published 

 in 1820, and of seven papers communicated to the Royal Society 

 from 1822 to 1833. These labours of Mr. Barlow were so highly 

 esteemed, and the method he devised for correcting compass-errors, 

 although confessedly not perfect, was at the time deemed of so great 

 practical value, that in 1825 he received the Copley Medal from the 

 Royal Society " for his Various Communications on the Subjects of 

 Magnetism." 



VOL. xir. e 



