

1822-8. jET. 48-55.] PKOFESSOR YOUNG. 251 



the safety of ships, but, considering it as intended for 

 nautical and not astronomical use, he resisted the 

 changes which practical astronomers strongly urged on 

 him and on the Government. 



In 1822 he wrote to Mr. Grurney from Paris : 



In my own pursuits I have found abundance of novelty 

 to interest me, both the scientific and literary departments 

 of the Institute happening at this moment to be particularly 

 engaged with my investigations, and a Frenchman having 

 in each of them been engaged in going over my own 

 ground without being fully acquainted with what I had 

 done, and having had to exclaim, ' Pereant qui ante nos 

 nostra dixerunt.' Fresnel, a young mathematician of the 

 civil engineers, has really been doing some good things 

 in the extension and application of my theory of light, and 

 Champollion, the author of the book you brought over, has 

 been working still harder upon the Egyptian characters. 

 He devotes his whole time to the pursuit, and he has been 

 wonderfully successful in some of the documents which he 

 has obtained. 



How far he will acknowledge everything which he has 

 either borrowed or might have borrowed from me, I am 

 not quite confident, but the world will be sure to remark 

 que c'est le premier pas qui coute, though the proverb is 

 less true in this case than in most others, for here every 

 step is laborious. 



The best comparative estimate of the value of the 

 work of Young and Fresnel on light was given by Sir 

 John Herschel, in 1827, at the end of his view of the 

 undulating theory of light in the ' Encyclopaedia Metro- 

 politana ' : 



Such is the beautiful theory of Fresnel and Young, for 

 we must not, in our regard for one great name, forget the 



