LIGHT SCIENCE 

 FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



SECOND SERIES. 



MRS. SOMERVILLE. 



MARY SOMERVILLE (nee FAIRFAX) was born at Jedburgh 

 on December 26, 1780, and died on November 30, 1872, 

 at Naples, aged nearly ninety-two years. In consider- 

 ing her education, we have not to mention important 

 seminaries, where skilled teachers make it their chief 

 business to impart to others the knowledge for which 

 they are themselves eminent, but to speak only of 

 studies pursued in the calm of a quiet home. This, 

 rightly understood, is perhaps the most remarkable 

 feature of her career. There are few mathematicians 

 so eminent as she deservedly was, in whose fame great 

 public schools and universities do not in some degree 

 partake. But we owe almost to accident the discovery 

 of the powers of Mary Fairfax's mind, while the gradual 

 development of those powers proceeded under the 

 guidance of tutors unknown to fame, and with access 

 only to such assistance as could be given by the friends 

 of her own family. 



