Obituary. —Cauchy. 91 
of different years, sufficiently account for both the successes and 
the failures of navigators in reaching that open sea; while the 
heavy ocean swell, and the warm winter wind, both of which 
approach this icy barrier upon the north, and that, too, during 
the fiercest frosts of the northern sunless winters, appear to 
prove that the ocean towards the north pole is, even then, still 
open, and that it warms and tempers those winds which pass 
over it, and which so constantly drive its waves against that 
ity rampart by which the frost king has fixed and defined its 
southern shore, 
Art, XUI.— Correspondence of M. Jerome Nickles, dated Paris, 
A 857. 
; ugust, 
— ,, Obitwary.—Cauchy.—In my last communication I gave some 
F biographical details respecting the great mathematician Cauchy. 
€ recent publication of a notice by Biot, one of his cotempo- 
Taries and friends, Jeads me to return to the snbject. 
Cauchy was born on the 21st of August, 17389. At an early 
age he was distinguished by great versatility of talents. His 
classical education, commenced by his father, was continued un- 
a der able professors at the “Heole Centrale” of the Pantheon. 
@ left the school at the age of fifteen, after two vears of literary 
~ Wades, tuking the second prize in Latin composition, the first 
In Greek, and the first in Latin verse. On account of this so 
universal success, the Institute decreed to him the highest honor 
reserved for the student of the central schools most disting 
In classical literature. ; 
ler two years at the Pol ytechnic School, he left it to become 
® engineer in the Department of Roads and Bridges. On the 
Sth o May, 1811, at the age of twenty-two, he presented to the 
Institute a inemoir of remarkable character, on geometric poly- 
hedrons, in which he generalized a theorem of Euler and com- 
Pleted the theory of a new species of regular polyhedrous dis- 
Covered by Poinsot. M., Legendre, the most severe of our geo- 
Metriciang, regarded the memoir “as the production of an adept 
Whose ability promised the highest success.” Ile engaged the 
Young author to pursue this line of research, and to endeavor to 
€stablish theorem equally applicable to certain polyhedrons 
&mbraced in the definitions of Euclid for which no demonstra- 
= ha vet been made out. Cauchy accomplished this in 1812. 
n his report thereon to the Academy, Legendre expressed, his 
sPprobation With an earnestness quite unusual for hin. Bi 
te ese two earliest memoirs seemed to show a special pe 
hig robles purely geometrical. But it was soon evident = 
~S Capacity was far wider. In the years 1818 and 1814, Cauchy 
