WOMEN IN PHYSICS 



Two years after Signora Bassi was gathered to her 

 fathers there was born near Edinburgh to a Scotch admiral, 

 Sir William George Fairfax, an infant daughter who was 

 destined to shed as much luster on her sex in the British 

 Isles as the incomparable Laura Bassi had diffused on 

 womankind in Italy during her brilliant career in "Bo- 

 logna, the learned. ' ' She is known in the annals of science 

 as Mary Somerville, and was in every way a worthy suc- 

 cessor of her famous sister in Italy, both as a woman and 

 as a votary of science. 



Although her chief title to fame is her notable work in 

 mathematical astronomy, especially her translation of La- 

 place's Mechanique Celeste, she is likewise to be accorded a 

 prominent place among scientific investigators for her con- 

 tributions to physics and cognate branches of knowledge. 

 Chief among these are her works on the Connection of the 

 Physical Sciences and Physical Geography. As to the last 

 production, no less an authority than Alexander von Hum- 

 boldt pronounced it an exact and admirable treatise, and 

 wrote of it as " that excellent work which has charmed and 

 instructed me since its first appearance.*' 



In a letter from the illustrious German savant to the 

 gifted authoress of the two last-named volumes occurs the 

 following paragraph: "To the great superiority you pos- 

 sess and which has so nobly illustrated your name on the 

 high regions of mathematical analysis, you add, Madam, 

 a variety of information in all parts of physics and descrip- 

 tive natural history. After the Mechanism of the Heavens, 

 the philosophical Connection of the Physical Sciences has 

 been the object of my profound admiration. . . . The 

 author of the vast Cosmos should more than any one else 

 salute the Physical Geography of Mary Somerville. ... I 



in Fantuzzi's Notizie degli Scrittori Bolognesi, Tom. I, pp. 384-391, 

 and Mazzuchelli's Gli Scrittori d' Italia, Vol. II, Part I, pp. 527-529, 

 Brescia, 1758. 



