#799 ] 
building of ‘the fhips was introduced, ac- 
cording to the principles of Euler; by 
which improvement, an equality of failing 
was effected in all the flips of the royal 
navy. The form of the French’ fhips, 
which are conftruéted on mathematical 
principles, is inconteftibly preferable to 
that of the fhips of the other naval powers ; 
being the moft advantageous and the beft 
adapted for faft failing and for manoeuvring. 
Experienced Britith officers of high rank 
have, in the Britifh Houfe of Parliament, 
publicly acknowledged this fuperiority ; 
and all thefe advantages the French navy 
owes folely to the genius, the profound 
knowledge, and patrioticexertions of Borda. 
He again brought into ufe Mayer’s old and 
wholly forgotten method of meafuring terref- 
‘trial angles, apphted it to aftronomical ob- 
fervations, and, for that purpofe, invented 
a new conftruction of circles,’ with double 
moveable telelcopes 5 which have been ufed 
in the new admeafurement of a degree in 
France. He is the inventor of the inge- 
nious menfuration-rod, with which the 
new French ftation-lines were meafured ; 
and had the gteateft fhare in the reform of 
weights and meafures ; of which he was 
fo zealous a promoter, that he printed, at 
his own expence, Tabies of Sines in the de- 
cimal fyftem. In 1792 he determined, with 
an’ accuracy that had never been before 
attained, the length of the pendulum vyi- 
brating feconds at Paris. In 1797, we 
find his name: in the lift of candidates for 
the office of Direétor of the French re- 
public. 
The following anecdote is told of Borda 
in his youth. On prefenting himfelf before 
Le Camus, the academician,-and examiner 
general to all the military {chools, to be 
examined for admiflion into the royal corps 
of artillery, the latter rejected the young 
smathematician, as deftitute of the requifite 
capacity. Only a fhort time, however, had 
€lapled, before Borda became the colleague 
of his fermer examiner, who, had formed 
fo erroneous a judgment of his talents and 
genius.—Borda, either fromthe love of 
truth, orfrom refpeét for Le Camus, his 
former judge, and now become his bro- 
ther academician, conftantly declared this 
ftory to be entirely deftitute of founda- 
tion. . 

MEMOIRS of the late R. J. BOSCOVICH, 
the celeorated Ajirqnomer. 
ROGER Jofeph Bofcovich was born at 
Ragula, in Dalmatia, on the 18th of May 
W7ixr. Onthe 1ft of OSober 1725, he 
entered as a novice among the Jeluits at 
 Memsirs of F. R. Bofeovich. fi 803 
Rome. In November 1740, he was ap- 
pointed profeflor of mathematics in the 
Roman College in that city ; where he foon 
diftinoutthed himfelt by a number of, ex- 
cellent mathematical and aftronomical dif- 
fertations, which he wrete on the rotation 
of the fun; on the irregularities of the 
motions of Jupiter and Saturn; on light ; 
on dioptrics ; on the flux and reflux of the 
fea; on the atmofphere of the moon; and 
on the calculation of the paths of comets. 
In the year 1750, under the pontificate - 
of Benedi& XIV. the admeafurement of a 
degree im the Ecclefiaftical State was com- 
“mitted to Bofcovich, by Cardinal Valentz, 
the Pope’s firft minifter. This commif- 
fion he happily executed with the affiftance 
of his brother Jefuit, F, Maire: and gave 
an account of their labours in a work, en-. 
titled De literaria Expeditione per Pontif- 
cidim Ditionem, Gc.; of which a French 
tran{lation was publifhed at Paris in 1770, 
under the title Voyage aftronom, et géogra- 
phique dansT Etat del Eglife, °°. 
The admeafurements of a degree in 
Autria_and Hungary, by father Lief-. 
ganig ; in Piedmont, by father Beccaria ; 
and even in America by Majin and Dixon, 
were undertaken at his urgent reprefenta- 
tions of their utility, and through the cre- 
dit which he -poffefied with the minifters 
at feveral of the courts of Europe. .. He 
likewife effected the reftordtion of the cele- 
brated gnomon at Florence ; which father 
Ximenes afterwards defcribed, and with 
which he obferved the obliquity of the 
ecliptic. Inthe year 1759, he publifhed 
at Vienna his Philofophie Naturalis Theo- 
via: of which a new edition appeared in 
17633; though, according tofome accounts, 
it was only the old edition with a new 
title-page. 
From Vienna he was called by the im- 
perial minifter, Count Firmian, to Milan Bs 
where, during three years, he taught aftro- 
nomy and optics ; and may be confidered 
as the founder of the obfervatory belong- 
‘ing to the Jefuits in ‘that city; from which 
afterwards arofe the Imperial obfervatory 
of Brera. \ 
On the diffolution of the Order of Je- 
fuits in 1773, Bofcovich was invited to 
France by his Parifian friends and patrons, 
De la Borde, Durfort, the minitters Boynes 
and Vergennes, and Madame de Sivrac; he 
accepted the invitation, and fettled at Pa- ' 
ris; where he was naturalized, and ap- 
pointed a Derecteur d’ Optique de la Marine 
with an annual falary of ‘S00 livres. 
Bofcovich was likewile a votary of the 
mufes ; his dry and fertous mathematical 
Rudies diminifhed not the fire of his 
imagination, 

