liv. 



Annual Report of the Council. 



at Woolwich. This post was held by him till 1870, when r 

 in consequence of some reorganisation, his services were 

 dispensed with. There was a widespread feeling that the 

 Government of the day were dealing in a narrow and 

 illiberal spirit with a man of Sylvester's scientific eminence 

 and long service. The case was taken up by the Times 

 newspaper, and in consequence of the pressure brought 

 upon them the Government were induced to accord a 

 substantial pension. A few years afterwards he was called 

 to the Professorship of Mathematics in the newly-founded 

 Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore. He discharged 

 the duties of this post with great spirit and enthusiasm, 

 and the present active school of American mathematicians 

 may be said to have originated under his leadership. The 

 American Journal of Mathematics, which has taken rank among 

 the great mathematical serials, was also founded and for a 

 long time conducted by him. Sylvester returned to this 

 country in 1883, to fill the vacancy which had been caused 

 by the death of Henry Smith in the Savilian Chair of 

 Geometry at Oxford. He held this office till his death, 

 but increasing infirmities led to his practical retirement in 

 1892, when a substitute was appointed. Thenceforward he 

 resided chiefly in London, where he died on March 15, 

 1897. 



The detailed appreciation of Sylvester's position as an 

 original investigator must be sought for elsewhere. * That 

 he occupied a place in the foremost rank of the mathe- 

 maticians of his generation cannot be questioned. He was 

 endowed with great acuteness, a bright enthusiasm, and the 

 power of sustained labour. His most notable achievements 

 were, perhaps, those in Algebra, and in the Theory of 

 Numbers. He witnessed the birth and powerfully contri 

 buted to the growth of the Theory of Invariants. The 

 nomenclature of this subject is, indeed, almost entirely due 

 to him, and he could justly claim to rank with Boole and 



* See the obituary notice in Nature, March 25, 1897, by 

 Major MacMahon, F.R.S. 



