160 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



rope and America. In recognition of her services to science 

 she was granted by the government a pension of 200 a year 

 a sum which was shortly afterward increased to 300. 

 In addition to all this, Mrs. Somerville had the satisfaction 

 of learning that her work was so highly esteemed by Dr. 

 Whewell, the great master of Trinity, that it was, chiefly 

 on his recommendation, introduced as a text-book in the 

 University of Cambridge and prescribed as "an essential 

 work to those students who aspire to the highest places in 

 the examinations. " What Mme. du Chatelet had done for 

 Newton, Mrs. Somerville did for Laplace. 



Among other books from the pen of this highly gifted 

 woman is her Connection of the Physical Sciences and a 

 work entitled Physical Geography, which, together with the 

 Mechanism of the Heavens, was the object of the "profound 

 admiration" of Humboldt. Then there is a number of 

 very abstruse monographs on mathematical subjects, one 

 of which is a treatise of two hundred and forty-six pages 

 On Curves and Surfaces of Higher Orders, which, she tells 

 us, she ' ' wrote con amore to fill up her morning hours while 

 spending the winter in Southern Italy. ' ' 



Her last work was a treatise On Molecular and Micro- 

 scopic Science embodying the most recondite investigations 

 on the subject. This book, begun after she had passed her 

 eightieth birthday, occupied her for many years and was 

 not ready for publication until she was close upon her 

 ninetieth year. Her last occupations, continued until the 

 day of her death at the advanced age of ninety-two, were 

 the reading of a book on Quaternions and the review and 

 completion of a volume On the Theory of Differences. 



Like her illustrious friend, the great Humboldt, Mary 

 Somerville was possessed of extraordinary physical vigor, 

 and, like him, she retained her mental powers unimpaired 

 until the last. And like her great rival in mathematics, 

 Maria Gaetana Agnesi, she was always "beautifully wom- 

 anly." Her scientific and literary occupations did not 



