xl 



Scientific toys were a source of great delight to him, as has been already 

 seen in his study of the kaleidoscope. Late in life he amused himself 

 much with conversions of plane rectilinear figures of equal areas — cutting 

 out pieces of card so that they could be differently put together to prove 

 the equality, and thereby forming a series of geometrical recreations. He 

 was also fond of exercising his ingenuity in the construction as well as the 

 solution of chess problems, of which he formed a large collection. Some 

 of those figured in the ' Illustrated London News ' were of his inven- 

 tion. To assist persons interested in the same pursuit, he contrived 

 and published (in 1845) a pocket chess-board, in which small men of card, 

 lying flat on the board, were kept in place by the insertion of their bases 

 into folds or pockets in the chequered paper which composed it. In the 

 London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine' for April 1840, there 

 is a " Description of a Method," which he invented, " of moving the 

 Knight over every square of the chess-board without going twice over any 

 one ; commencing at a given square and ending at any other given square 

 of a different colour." The complete solution of this problem, which had 

 engaged the attention of some of the most eminent mathematicians, in- 

 cluding Euler and De Moivre, had never been effected before. 



During his latest years, which were passed in complete retirement, he 

 derived great amusement from light epigrammatic literature, still collecting 

 and classifying according to his wont ; but his chief resource was in the 

 pages of his ' Thesaurus/ to which he continued to make additions until 

 the last day of his life. His constant spirit of cheerfulness as his end drew 

 nigh, and the kindness and benevolence which endeared him to all around, 

 befitted a life spent in accordance with his belief that the purpose of our 

 existence here on earth is that of doing good to our fellow creatures in 

 furtherance of God's everlasting glory. After spending last summer at 

 Malvern in the enjoyment of his usual health, his strength failed him during 

 the great heat of August, and on the 12th of September he expired, peace- 

 fully and without suffering, from the natural decay of that vital power the 

 mysterious working of which he had so laboured to illustrate. 



Dr. Roget was also Consulting Physician to Queen Charlotte's Lying-in 

 Hospital ; Hon. Member of the College of Physicians in Ireland ; Fellow 

 of the Astronomical, Entomological, Geographical, Geological, and Zoo- 

 logical Societies, and the Society of Arts ; Member of the Royal Institu- 

 tion ; Hon. Member of the Institute of Civil Engineers, of the College of 

 Physicians in Ireland, and of the Literary and Philosophical Societies 

 of Liverpool, Bristol, Quebec, New York, Haarlem, Turin, Stockholm, 

 and Athens. He was also a member of a variety of social scientific clubs, 

 among others, an Honorary Member of the Smeatonian Society of Civil 

 Engineers ; and he was at the time of his death the " father " of the Royal 

 Society Club, of which he had been a member since 1827. 



