OBITUARY NOTICE OF FELLOW DECEASED. 



In the death of Mr. Chaeles Watkins Merrifield, mathematical 

 science generally, but particularly those branches which relate to 

 nautical matters, have suffered great loss. Since the deaths of 

 Rankine and William Froude, no one has passed away whose presence 

 will be so greatly missed at the annual gatherings of the Institution 

 of Naval Architects, and that of Section G of the British Association. 



Mr. Merrifield, although essentially a mathematician, and even a 

 pure mathematician, was one of the few to whom the revolution from 

 the rule of thumb to that of exact science in naval architecture was 

 immediately due. The part which he undertook in this movement, 

 although of the greatest importance, is from its nature unlikely to 

 attract notice. And for this reason, perhaps, as well as from the 

 labour involved, as much as its inherent difficulty, was much 

 neglected at the time when Merrifield commenced his work. 



It is a common complaint against pure mathematicians, that while 

 they are continually pursuing, or being led by, this subject into 

 abstractions which lie outside the region of experience, they neglect 

 to develop those branches relating to matters of experience sufficiently 

 to render them useful as means of calculation. 



Merrifield was an important exception to this rule. He held him- 

 self free from the fascination of any line of abstract reasoning which 

 his work may have exposed, and devoted his time and energy to the 

 not less difficult, but to many less interesting task of increasing the 

 usefulness of mathematics by the development and adaptation of 

 methods of application, as well as by the extension of mathematical 

 tables which reduce the amount of calculation (otherwise often pro- 

 hibitory) immediately necessary for any particular application. To 

 this work he mainly devoted the time at his disposal throughout his 

 scientific career, commencing in 1858 ; and in 1880, at the request 

 of the Committee of Section A of the British Association, he drew up 

 a report on the entire subject at which he had mainly been working, 

 entitled " Report on the present State of Knowledge of the Applica- 

 tion of Quadratures and Interpolation to actual Data." This is pub- 

 lished in the British Association Report for 1880, and is in itself 

 a work of great and, in all probability, lasting importance. 



But it is not only as chiefly on account of his mathematical work 

 that the loss occasioned by Mr. Merrifield's death w r ill be felt by those 

 who were accustomed to his presence at discussions of scientific 

 matters. His exact and wide knowledge of the circumstances of 



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