114 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



ers and gorse on the heath-clad links, . . . having neither dolls nor 

 playmates." "When the tide was out," she says in her "Personal 

 Recollections," "I spent hours on the sand, looking at the star-fish 

 and sea-urchins, or watching the children digging for sand-eels, cock- 

 les, and the spouting razor-fish. I made a collection of shells, such as 

 were cast ashore, some so small that they appeared like white specks 

 in patches of black sand. There was a small pier on the sands for 

 shipping limestone brought from the coal-mines inland. I was aston- 

 ished to see the surface of these blocks of stone covered with beauti- 

 ful impressions of what seemed to be leaves ; how they got there I 

 could not imagine, but I picked up the broken bits, and even large 

 pieces, and brought them to my repository. I knew the eggs of many 

 birds, and made a collection of them." 



When ten years old, she was sent to school at Musselburgh, 

 where she spent a year of misery. The chief thing she had to do at 

 this expensive establishment was to learn by heart a page of John- 

 son's dictionary, not only to spell the words, give their parts of speech 

 and meaning, but as an exercise of memory to remember their order 

 of succession. Besides this, she had to learn the first principles of 

 writing, and the rudiments of French and English grammar. From 

 this place " she returned home, as she naively says, like a wild animal 

 escaped from a cage, to revel once more in the curiosities of the sea- 

 shore, sitting up half the night to watch the stars or the aurora, and 

 having an instinctive horror, which clung to her through life, of being 

 alone in the dark." Four or five years later she received her first 

 introduction to mathematics, by one of the most curious accidents 

 that could be imagined — through a fashion-magazine. At one of the 

 tea-parties given by her mother's neighbors, she became acquainted 

 with a Miss Ogilvie, who asked her to go and see fancy works she 

 was engaged upon. " I went next day," Mrs. Somerville writes, " and 

 after admiring her work, and being told how it was done, she showed 

 me a monthly magazine with colored plates of ladies' dresses, charades, 

 and puzzles. At the end of a page I read what appeared to me to be 

 simply an arithmetical question ; but in turning the page I was sur- 

 prised to see strange -looking lines mixed with letters, chiefly X's and 

 Y's, and asked, 'What is that?' * Oh,' said Miss Ogilvie, *it is a 

 kind of arithmetic — they call it algebra ; but I can tell you nothing 

 about it.' And we talked about other things ; but, on going home, 

 I thought I would look if any of our books could tell me what was 

 meant by algebra. In Robertson's 'Navigation,' I flattered myself 

 that I had got precisely what I wanted ; but I soon found that I was 

 mistaken. I perceived, however, that astronomy did not consist in 

 star-gazing, and, as I persevered in studying the book for a time, I 

 certainly got a dim view of several subjects which were useful to me 

 afterward. Unfortunately, not one of our acquaintances or relations 

 knew anything of science or natural history ; nor, had they done so. 



