Annual Report of the Council. xxxi 



George Salmon was born in Dublin in 1819. He was 

 educated at Trinity College, and after a brilliant University 

 career was elected to a Fellowship in 1841. In his subsequent 

 life it was his lot to attain to the highest distinction in widely 

 different fields. For twenty years he held the post of Tutor, 

 and although it is probable that the theological studies which 

 afterwards became his predilection already absorbed much of his 

 attention, his main outward activity during this period was in 

 subjects of Pure Mathematics, and especially in Analytical 

 Geometry. He was in constant and sympathetic correspondence 

 with Sylvester and Cayley, and although somewhat careless 

 about original publication himself, made many notable contri- 

 butions to the branches of mathematics which were at that time 

 in process of development. He is still more widely known on 

 account of the unique excellence of his set treatises on Analytical 

 Geometry. As systematic expositions of the actual state of the 

 science, in which enthusiasm for what is new is tempered by 

 a due respect for what is old, they stand almost unrivalled. 

 Whether in the originals, or in the form of translations, they are 

 still quoted as classics in every University of the world. 



The estimate in which his mathematical work was held is 

 further indicated by the numerous honours of a scientific kind 

 which were subsequently bestowed upon him ; he was elected a 

 Fellow of the Royal Society in 1863, and received a Royal 

 Medal in 1868 and the Copley Medal in 1889. He was also a 

 member of the Institute of France, and of the Academies of 

 Berlin and Gottingen. 



His mathematical career, brilliant and unique in some ways 

 as it was, came, however, to an end by his own choice in the 

 year 1866, when he accepted the Regius Professorship of 

 Divinity in Trinity College. He afterwards took a prominent 

 part in the reorganization of the Church of Ireland which 

 became necessary on the passing of the Disestablishment Act 

 of 1869. On the death of Jellett, in 1888, he became, with 

 universal approval, Provost of Trinity College, and proved most 

 zealous and active in the administration of that great corporation. 



