VOL. XXXVII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 5lg 



admit one's finger, was also discovered penetrating from the rectum into the 

 colon at the place where these intestines adhered ; and these intestines were so 

 putrid that they would scarcely bear to be handled. Although the patient had 

 been troubled with a looseness before his death, yet the greater portion of the 

 colon was stuffed up witli indurated fteces ; the liquid parts of the fa?cal matter 

 having passed directly into the rectum through the ulcerated orifice, while the 

 more solid parts were retained in the colon. The urinary bladder was extremely 

 flaccid, and its internal surface was lined with a reddish mucus, 



Tiuo Problems concerning the Figures assumed by Revolving Fluids; with Con- 

 jectures concerning Stars which someti?nes appear and disappear ; and on 

 Salurns Ring. By Peter Lewis de Maupertuis* F. R. S. ^c. N° 423, 

 p. 242. Translated from the Latin. 



Prob. ]. — To find the figure of a fluid spheroid revolving about an axis; 

 supposing the parts of the fluid attracted to the centre according to any power 

 of the distance from the centre. 



Let PQ, fig. 6, pi. 12, be the axis of rotation, and paqb a section of the 



* Peter Lewis Moreau de Maupertuis, a celebrated member of the French Academy, and of the 

 Academies of Sciences of Paris, Berlin, and London, &c. was bom Sept. 1698, at St. Malo. He 

 served in the army at first as a musqueteer, and rose to the rank of a colonel ; but afterwards quitted 

 the service, and devoted himself entirely to the mathematical sciences. In 1736" he was placed at 

 the head of the academicians sent to the north, to measure a part of die meridian there, for deter- 

 mining the figure of the earth. After his return he was invited to Berlin by tlie King of Prussia, 

 and appointed president of the academy tliere. Maupertuis followed that prince to the field, exposed 

 his life bravely, was taken prisoner, and carried to Vienna, where he was loaded with marks of 

 favour by the emperor and empress. One of the anecdotes mentioned on this occasion is pleasant 

 enough : M. lamenting that the hussars, who took him prisoner, among other things, had plundered 

 him of a curious watch made by Graham of England ; the emperor having another made by the 

 same artist, but enriched with diamonds, presented him with it, saying, " it was only a little trick 

 the hussars put upon you ; they have brought your watch to me, and I now return it to you." 



Maupertuis soon returned to Berlin ; where amidst all the honours and pleasures the Prussian mo- 

 narch lavished on him, he could not conquer the unhappy discontentedness and irritability of his 

 temper ; his disputes with Koenig and Voltaire embittered his life. Koenig was expelled from the 

 academy, and Voltaire from Berlin. But M. was still unhappy there, and returned into France in 

 1756, under pretence of recovering his health. And in 1758 going to visit his friends, the Bernoullis 

 at Basil, he died with them in the summer of 1755. 



Maupertuis's writings discover genius, fire, and imagination ; but not always a deep knowledge of 

 mathematics, nor much solidity or judgment. 



The above paper is the only one of his in the Philos. Trans, but his memoirs in those of the 

 Academy of Sciences, and elsewhere, are very numerous. His works have been collected, and 

 published in 4 vols. Svo. 176"S ; but the above paper in the Philos. Trans, is not among them. 



