320 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1747. 



Concerning the Discoveries of the Russians on the North- East Coast of Asia. By 

 Mr. Leonard Euler,* Prof. Mathem. and Member of the Imperial Society at 

 Petersburg. Dated Berlin, Dec. "iO, 1746. N° 48'2, p. 421. 



1st. The new land, which Behring fell in with, at the distance of 50 German 

 miles from Kamschatka towards the east, was followed by him, and coasted a 



* Leonard Euler, a most profound mathematician, and a general scholar, was born at Basil, 

 April 15, 1707. His father, being a clergyman, intended his son, and had him educated, for the 

 same profession ; but, his powerful attachment to the mathematics proving too strong for all opposi- 

 tion, he was suffered to pursue those studies to which he had fully and effectually devoted himself, 

 under the assistance of professor John Bernoulli. At l6 years of age, he took his master of arts de- 

 gree ; on which occasion he delivered "a Latin discourse, highly applauded, on a comparison between 

 the philosophy of Newton and the Cartesian system. 



In 1727 he carried the 2d prize of the Paris Academy of Sciences, for the answer to a prize 

 question on the masting of ships ; which led him to a more general study of naval architecture, 

 which he afterwards enriched with so many valuable discoveries. Euler's merit would have given 

 him an easy admission to honourable preferment either in the magistracy or university of his native 

 city, had not both civil and academical honours been there distributed by lot. The lot being against 

 him in a certain promotion, he quitted the country, and went to Petersburg, where he was made 

 joint professor with his countrymen Hermann and Daniel Bernoulli, who had been invited there a 

 short time before. 



Here a noble emulation between him and the Bernoullis, &c. had the happiest effect in improving 

 and extending the sciences. Here he enriched the academical collection with numerous and valuable 

 memoirs in every one of its volumes, to the time of his death, and even left behind him a multitude 

 of new memoirs, in order to continue his annual contributions for many years longer. Here he 

 carried to new degrees of perfection the integral calculus, invented the calculation by sines, reduced 

 analytical operations to a greater simplicity, and thus was enabled to throw new light on every part 

 of mathematical science. 



In 1730, Euler was promoted to the chair of natural philosophy ; and in 1733 he succeeded his 

 friend Dan. Bernoulli in that of mathematics. Here the violent and laborious efforts, his emulation 

 induced him to make, at length threw him into a fever, that endangered his life, and from which he 

 escaped not without the loss of one eye entirely, and which some time afterwards brought on total 

 blindness many years before his death ; though still without abating his ardour for scientific im- 

 provements. 



In 1730, the Academy of Sciences at Paris adjudged the prize to his memoir on the Nature and 

 Properties of Fire ; and in 1740 he shared equally with Maclaurin and D. Bernoulli the prize given 

 by the same Academy, for the important subject of the tides in the sea ; our author's solution of this 

 question being esteemed a masterpiece of analysis and geometry. 



In 1741, Euler was invited to Berlin, to direct and assist the academy that was there rising into 

 fame. And here his labours will appear more especially astonishing, when it is considered, that 

 while he was enriching the Academy of Berlin with a profusion of memoirs, on the deepest parts of 

 mathematical science ; he still continued his philosophical contributions to the Petersburg Academy, 

 whose memoirs display the amazing fecundity of his genius, and which had granted him a pension 

 in 1742. It was with great difficulty that, in 1766, he could obtain leave from the King of Prussia 

 to return to Petersburg, where he wished to pass the remainder of his days. But soon after his return 

 it was, that by an attack from another violent disorder, he was totally deprived of the sight of his 

 other eye. 



