J5VOMAN IN SCIENCE 



know of no work on physical geography in any language 

 that can compare with yours." 



Among the other works by Mrs. Somerville, treating of 

 physical subjects or of subjects intimately related to phys- 

 ics are The Form and Rotation of the Earth, The Tides 

 oj the Ocean and Atmosphere, and an abstruse investiga- 

 tion On Molecular and Microscopic Science. The last vol- 

 ume was published in 1869, when its author was near her 

 ninetieth year, and bore as its motto St. Augustine's sub- 

 lime words: Deus magnus in magnis, maximus in minimis 

 God is great in great things, greatest in the least. 



After Mrs. Somerville 's death, in 1872, at the advanced 

 age of ninety-two, the number of women who devoted them- 

 selves to the study and teaching of physics was greatly 

 augmented. The brilliant success of Laura Bassi and 

 Mary Somerville had not been without results, and their 

 notable achievements as authors and teachers had the effect 

 of stimulating women everywhere to emulate their example, 

 and encouraging them to devote more attention to a 

 branch of science which, until then, had been regarded by 

 the general public as beyond the sphere and capacity of 

 what was assumed to be the intellectually weaker sex. 



One of the most eminent scientific women of the present 

 day in England is Mrs. Ayrton, the wife of the late Pro- 

 fessor W. E. Ayrton, the well-known electrician. Her 

 chosen field of research, like that of her husband, has been 

 electricity, in which she has achieved marked distinction. 

 Her investigations on the electric arc and on the sand 

 ripples of the seashore won for her the first medal ever 

 awarded to a woman by the Royal Society. When, how- 

 ever, in 1902, she was formally nominated for fellowship 

 in this same society, she failed of election because the coun- 

 cil of the society discovered that ' ' it had no legal power to 

 elect a married woman to this distinction." 



How different it was in the case of Laura Bassi, who was 

 an active member of all the leading scientific and literary 



