BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. 



JOHN COUCH ADAMS was born on June 5, 1819, at the farmhouse of Lidcot, seven 

 miles from Launceston in Cornwall. His father, Thomas Adams, was a tenant farmer, 

 and his ancestors for at least four generations had been tenant farmers in or near 

 Laneast His mother, whose maiden name was Tabitha Knill Grylls, possessed a small 

 estate which was bequeathed to her by her aunt, Grace Couch. She had also inherited 

 her uncle's library, and these books, which included some on astronomy, were Adams's 

 early companions. He was the eldest of seven children. His brother Thomas, born 

 April 28, 1821, was a missionary in Tonga and completed the translation of the 

 Bible into the Tongan language : he died in 1885. His brother George, born 

 November 5, 1823, assisted his father at Lidcot and became a farmer. His 

 youngest brother, William Grylls Adams, born February 16, 1836, is the editor 

 of this volume. He had three sisters who all died before him. From his mother, 

 who belonged to a musical family, he inherited a correct ear and a love of music. 

 At a village school in Laneast he made rapid progress, and with the schoolmaster, 

 Mr R. C. Sleep, as his fellow student he was learning algebra before he was ten 

 years old. At the age of twelve he went to a private school at Devonport, kept 

 by the Rev. John Couch Grylls, a first cousin of his mother. 



He remained under Mr Grylls's tuition for several years, first at Devonport 

 and afterwards at Saltash and Landulph, and received the usual school training in 

 classics and mathematics. Astronomy had been his passion from very early boyhood, 

 and at fourteen years of age he made copious notes and drew tiny maps of the 

 constellations. He read with avidity all the astronomical books to which he could 

 obtain access, and in particular he studied the astronomical articles in Rees's Cyclo- 

 pcedia, which he met with in the library of the Devonport Mechanics' Institute, where 

 he used to spend his spare time in reading astronomy and mathematics. In the same 

 library he came across a copy of Vince's Fluxions, which was his first introduction 

 to the higher mathematics. 



The intense interest which as a boy he felt in all astronomical questions is shown 

 by the number of carefully written out manuscripts, belonging to this period, which 

 exist among his papers, as well as by his letters to his parents and brothers. Some 

 A. C 



