MRS. SOMERVILLE. II 



The fact was that Mrs. Somerville recognised, or which 

 is practically the same thing, wrote as if she recognised, 

 no distinction between the recondite and the simple. 

 She makes no more attempt at explanation when 

 speaking of the perturbations of the planets or discuss- 

 ing the most profound problems of motecular physics, 

 than when she is merely running over a series of state- 

 ments respecting geographical or climatic relations. 

 It would almost seem as though her mind was so con- 

 stituted that the difficulties which ordinary minds ex- 

 perience in considering complex mathematical problems 

 had no existence for her. A writer, to whom we owe 

 one of the best obituary notices of Mrs. Somerville 

 which hitherto have appeared, tells us that the sort of 

 pressure Mrs. Somerville underwent from her publisher 

 as the earlier editions of the Connexion of the Physical 

 Sciences passed through the press ' convinced her of her 

 own unfitness for popularising science. When there was 

 already no time to lose in regard to her proof sheets, she 

 had hint upon hint from Mr. Murray that this and that 

 and the other paragraph required to be made plainer to 

 popular comprehension. She declared that she tried very 

 hard to please Mr. Murray and others who made the same 

 complaint, but that every departure from scientific 

 terms and formulas appeared to her a departure from 

 clearness and simplicity ; so that, by the time she had 

 explained and described to the extent required, her 

 statements seemed to her cumbrous and confused. In 

 other words, this was not her proper work.' 



Eespecting her two other works, I shall merely 



