700 
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banks of the Loire, on the great mound called the Levee ; 
27 miles south-east of Angers, and 31 west-south-west of 
Tours. 
SAUNDBY, a parish of England, in Nottinghamshire ; 
8 miles north-east of East Retford. 
SAUNDERS (Charles), a dramatic writer in the reign of 
Charles II. While a king’s scholar at Westminster he wrote 
a play, called “ Tamerlane the Great,” to which Dryden 
wrote a prologue. 
SAUNDERS (Richard), who rose to be a judge from 
being a common beggar. By accident his genius and talents 
were discovered by a lawyer of Clement’s-Inn, who took him 
into his employment, and made him, in a short time, his 
clerk. He afterwards studied for the bar, became an emi¬ 
nent barrister, and at length obtained the high office of chief 
justice of the court of king’s bench. He died in the year 
1683. 
SAUNDERS, Cape, a cape on the north-east coast of 
the Island of Georgia. Lat. 54. 10. S. long. 36. 57. W. 
SAUNDERS, Cape, a cape of New Zealand, on the 
south-coast of the island of Tavai-Poe-nammoo. Lat. 45. 
35. S. long. 189. 4. W. 
SAUNDERSON (Nicholas), a celebrated English pro¬ 
fessor of mathematics, was born in the year 1682, at 
Tlmrlston, near Penniston, in Yorkshire, where his father 
had a small estate, and a place in the excise. At the age 
of twelve months he lost his eye-sight, and even his eyes 
by the small-pox. At a very early age he afforded indi¬ 
cations of considerable abilities, and was sent to the free- 
school of Penniston, and there laid the foundation of that 
knowledge in the Greek and Latin languages, which he af¬ 
terwards so much improved as to hear with pleasure and 
delight the works of Euclid, Archimedes, and Diophantus, 
read in the originals. Having finished his school education, 
his father undertook to instruct him in the rules of arith¬ 
metic, and very soon discovered that he had an excellent 
mathematical genius. At the age of eighteen he was intro¬ 
duced to the acquaintance of Richard West, Esq., a consi¬ 
derable mathematician, who undertook to instruct him in the 
principles of algebra and geometry, and gave him every en¬ 
couragement in his power to the prosecution of these studies. 
Soon after this he found a kind and zealous friend in Dr. 
Nettleton, and it was to these gentlemen that he owed his 
first instructions in the mathematical sciences, but he soon 
surpassed his masters, and became fitter to be teacher than 
pupil. He next went to an academy at Attercliff, near 
Sheffield, at which young men were educated for the mi¬ 
nistry among Protestant dissenters; here he remained but a 
short time, preferring to pursue his studies in his own way, 
rather than submit to general plans laid down for a class. 
Hitherto he had been on his father’s hands, who, on ac¬ 
count of a numerous family, could ill-bear the expenses at¬ 
tendant upon his son’s present pursuits; he began, therefore, 
to devise means of putting him into a method of supporting 
himself, and as his inclination led him to prefer Cambridge 
as a residence, it was determined he should try his fortune 
there. He accordingly went to the university in 1707, and 
took up his residence in Christ’s College without being ad¬ 
mitted a member of that house. The society, well pleased 
with so extraordinary a guest, allotted him a chamber, gave 
him the use of their library, and indulged him in every pri¬ 
vilege which could prove of any advantage to him. He 
soon commenced the duties of lecturer, and obtained great 
celebrity by his performances. Sir Isaac Newton’s Princi- 
pia, Optics, and Universal Arithmetic, were the foundation 
of his lectures, and afforded him a noble field for the display 
of his genius. Numbers induced from motives of curiosity, 
and many, no doubt, for the sake of instruction, came to 
hear and admire a blind man give lectures on optics, dis¬ 
course on the nature of light and colours, explain the theory 
of vision, the effects of glass in the refraction of the rays of 
light, the phenomena of the rainbow, and other objects of 
sight. 
As he undertook to instruct the collegians in the princi- 
S A U 
pies of the Newtonian philosophy, he soon became acquainted 
with Sir Isaac himself, and corresponded with him on the 
most difficult parts of his works. At this time Mr. Whis- 
ton was the Lucasian mathematical professor in the uni¬ 
versity, but when he was ejected from his fellowship 
Mr. Saunderson’s talents were known to be so much 
superior to that of any other competitor, that application 
was made to the queen for a mandamus to confer upon him 
the degree of A. M., which was granted, and he was chosen 
Mr. Whiston’s successor. Sir Isaac Newton interesting him¬ 
self greatly in his favour. Mr. Saunderson’s first perform¬ 
ance as professor was an inaugural speech, drawn up in very 
elegant Latin. From this time he applied himself closely to 
reading lectures, and the instruction of his pupils. He con¬ 
tinued to reside at Christ’s College till the year 1723, when 
he took a house at Cambridge, and very soon after married 
the daughter of a neighbouring clergyman, by whom he 
had a son and daughter. In the year 1728 king George II. 
visited the university, and professor Saunderson attending 
upon him in the senate, was, by the royal mandate, created 
doctor of laws. Dr. Saunderson was naturally of a strong 
constitution, but by confining himself too closely to his 
studies, he injured his health, and he died in April, in the 
year 1739. There is scarcely a branch of the mathematics 
in which he did not compose something for the use of his 
pupils. Previously to his death he prepared for the press 
his “ Elements of Algebra,” which w'ere published the year 
following his decease, in two volumes quarto. He left be¬ 
hind him many other writings, but none in a state sufficiently 
prepared for publication. Among these were some com¬ 
ments on the Principia of Sir Isaac Newton, which were 
published in the Latin language at the end of his posthu¬ 
mous treatise on “ Fluxions,” which was published in 1756. 
Dr. Saunderson was a man of much wit and vivacity in con¬ 
versation. He possessed a strict regard to truth, and was 
such an enemy to all sorts of disguise, that he thought it his 
duty to speak his thoughts, at all times, and on all occasions, 
with unrestrained freedom. Hence his sentiments on men 
and opinions were frequently expressed without reserve, 
which created him many enemies.. 
“ A blind man,” says one of his biographers, “moving 
in the sphere of a mathematician, seems a phenomenon diffi¬ 
cult to be accounted for, and has excited the admiration of 
every age in which it has appeared. Tully mentions it as 
a thing scarcely credible in his own master in philosophy. 
Diodorus, that he exercised himself in it with more assiduity 
after he became blind; and, what he thought next to impos¬ 
sible to be done, that without sight, he taught geometry, 
describing his diagrams so exactly to his scholars, that they 
could draw every line in its proper direction. St. Jerome 
relates a still more remarkable instance in Didymus of Alex¬ 
andria, who, blind from his infancy, was enabled to learn the 
sublimest parts of geometry. But if we consider that the 
ideas of extended quantity, which are the chief objects of 
mathematics, may as well be acquired by the sense of feeling 
as that of sight; that a fixed and steady attention is the 
principal qualification for his study, and that the blind are 
necessarily more abstracted than others, we shall find reason 
to conclude that there is no branch of science so much 
adapted to their circumstances.” 
At first Dr. Saunderson acquired most of his ideas by the 
sense of feeling, and this he enjoyed in great perfection, so 
much so, that he could in a set of Roman medals distin¬ 
guish the genuine from the false, though they had been 
counterfeited with such exactness as to deceive a connoisseur 
who had examined them w’ith a keen eye. Dr. Saunder¬ 
son’s ear was also equally exact. He could readily distin¬ 
guish the fifth part of a note. By the quickness of this sense 
he could judge of the size of a room, and of his distance from 
the four sides of it. 
SAUNDERS'S ISLAND, an island in the South Atlan¬ 
tic Ocean, so called after Sir Charles Saunders, by Captain 
Cook, who discovered it in the year 1775. It appeared to 
be about eight or ten leagues in circumference, shewing a 
surface 
