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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IX. No. 229'. 



gratulatioiis in bis own handwriting and a higher 

 order (erhohten Ordensgrad). There was no end 

 of letters and communications. In the morning 

 festive processions began to congratulate him, all 

 the authorities of the city, of the University, 

 of the school, strangers, acquaintances — probably 

 about fifty persons. Then father himself delivered 

 a lecture in the hall of the University, which was 

 overcrowded with spectators and listeners and had 

 been decorated with garlands and flowers like a 

 fairy hall. Even the houses in the streets were 

 decorated with flowers; in the city there were waves 

 of people in festive attire (wogte es von geputzten 

 Menschen ), as on a holiday. When, at last, in the even- 

 ing at seven, father came home from the great banquet, 

 he was, indeed, quite exhausted, and it was well that 

 the torchlight procession that the students had in- 

 tended for him was abandoned irpon his wish, but the 

 love and sympat'-y which had been shown him from 

 all sides had, in spite of all fatigue, pleased him in- 

 describably. How sad was it though that, where so 

 many strangers had congregated on his day of honor, 

 not one of his beloved sous could be with him ! ! 

 Even Joseph had been compelled to decline, as his 

 position as railway director did not, at that time, 

 make his absence from Hannover possible." 



Gauss was married twice. By his first 

 wife he had two sons (Joseph and Louis) 

 and one daughter (Minna). Louis died in 

 childhood. By his second wife he had two 

 sons (Eugene and Wiliielm) and one daugh- 

 ter (Theresa) . Eugene and Wilhelm settled 

 in the United States. In Germany Gauss 

 has only one grandchild, Carl Gauss, now 

 living at Hameln, in Hannover. He is a 

 son of Joseph. He was only six years old 

 when his grandfather died, in 1855. He 

 still remembers how his celebrated grand- 

 father tried to show him a star through the 

 great telescope ; how he stood full of expec- 

 tation near the ocular, while his grand- 

 father, wearing a velvet cap, was turning 

 the crank which moved the shutter on the 

 dome of the observatory. Another time 

 the child was playing in the garden of the 

 observatory when his grandfather met him 

 and asked : " What do you expect to make 

 of yourself?" whereupon young Carl re- 

 plied : " "Well, what do you expect to make 

 of yourself?' ' Then the old man patted the 



child's shoulder and said smilingly : " My 

 boy, I am already somebody." 



In a letter addressed to the writer, Carl 

 Gauss speaks also of his father, Joseph, 

 who, after completing the gymnasium in 

 Gottingen, went into the German army, 

 but subsequently got leave to assist his 

 father in the triangulation of the Kingdom 

 of Hannover. When the construction of 

 railways was first begun in that part of 

 Germany ofl&cers of the army were se- 

 lected, along with some foreign experts, to 

 superintend the work. So it happened that 

 Joseph Gauss left the army and served as 

 an engineer. In 1836 and '37 he was sent 

 by his government to the United States to 

 study the more advanced methods of rail- 

 way construction in the ISTew Woiid. Later 

 he became ' Oberbaurath' and director of 

 railroads and telegraphs in Hannover. 

 Finally he was assigned to the superinten- 

 dence of the special department of tele- 

 graphs, which position he kept until the 

 outbreak of the war of 1866. It is of in- 

 terest to think of him in connection with 

 the telegraph — the instrument in the in- 

 vention of which his father had played so 

 important a role. It is well known that as 

 early as 1833 C. F. Gauss and W. Weber 

 had a telegraphic line between the observa- 

 tory and the physical cabinet in Got- 

 tingen. 



Some biographers assert that Gauss's fa- 

 voi-ite child was Joseph, but there is rea- 

 son to believe that the father at first built 

 high hopes on what Eugene would do. In 

 a letter to Bessel (November 21, 1811), 

 after writing about hypergeometric and 

 logarithmic series, he says : " Wenn eines 

 meiner Kinder des Vaters Liebe zu den ex- 

 acten Wissenschaften erben soUte, so ist es 

 wahrscheinlich eher dieser Eugen als sein 

 leichtbliitiger Bruder Joseph." As the in- 

 fant reached boyhood he displayed far more 

 than ordinary ability, especially in lan- 

 guages. His father once took a French 



