246 Memoir of the Life of Dr. Thomas Young. 
a day’s serious illness. In the summer of 1828, he went to Geneva 
and appeared to suffer what was to him an unusual degree of fa- 
tigue; on great bodily exertion there was a perceptible diminution 
of strength, and symptoms of age appeared to come upon him, 
which contrasted strongly with the freedom from complaints he had 
hitherto enjoyed. 
The Commitee of Finance having-recommended to the Govern- 
ment the abolition of the Board of Longitude, a bill was passed to 
that effect, permitting the Admiralty to. retain the officer entrusted 
- with the calculations of the Nautical Almanack: this occured du- 
ring the time that Dr. Young was abroad, but he continued to ex- 
ecute these duties. Whether the measure was well or ill founded 
we shall not stay to inquire, but it produced great heart-burnings 
and discontent among those scientific men who considered them- 
selves or their friends treated unhandsomely, as well as illiberally, 
in the manner in which their services had been dispensed with. It 
appears that the occasional assistance of, men of science was found 
to be so necessary to many departments connected with the Admi- 
ralty, that it was found expedient to form anew council of three 
members for the performance of duties which had before devolved 
on the Board of Longitude, and for this purpose Dr. Young, Capt- 
ain Sabine, and Mr. Faraday, were appointed. 
The consequence of this change involved Dr. Young in more la- 
bor than his declining state of health rendered him competent to 
perform without injury, and exacerbated a complaint which must 
have been long, though insensibly, in progress, but. which now was 
bringing him rapidly to a stafe of extreme debility. From the 
month of Febuary 1829, his illness continued with some slight vari- 
ations, but he was gradually sinking into greater and greater weak- 
ness till the morning of the 10th of May, when he expired without 
a struggle, having hardly completed his fifty sixth year. He was 
attended through his illness by his friends Dr. Chambers and Dr. 
Nevinson. The disease proved to be an ossification of the aorta, 
and every appearance indicated an advance of age, not brought on 
_ probably by the natural course of time, nor even by constitutional 
formation, but by unwearied and incessant labor of the mind from 
the earliest days of infancy. His remains were deposited in a vault 
in the church of Farnborough, Kent. 
It has been truly said of this extraordinary man, that as a scholar, 
physician, a linguist, an antiquary, a mathematician, and philosopher, 
