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Mary Somerville

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Elizabeth C. Patterson
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Extract

“Whatever difficulty we might experience in the middle of the nineteenth century in choosing a king of science”, read the obituary notice in The Morning Post of Monday, 2 December 1872, “there could be no question whatever as to the queen of science.”1 And in a full-length column the death in Naples on the preceding Friday of Mary Somerville was announced. The Times of the same date, in a notice 2 of equal length and somewhat more scientific detail, spoke of the high regard in which her services to science were held both by men of science and by the nation. She had been for almost half a century the most famous of English scientific ladies and in achieving that role had become the first scientific lady of the world.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 4 , Issue 4 , December 1969 , pp. 311 - 339
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1969

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References

1 The Morning Post, London, 2 12 1872.Google Scholar

2 The Times, London, 2 12 1872.Google Scholar

3 The Somerville Collection, deposited by its owner, Sir Brian Fairfax Lucy, at Somerville College and the Bodleian Library.

4 She had begun the treatise, “On the Theory of Differences”, some forty years earlier.

5 MrsMarcet, Jane Haldimand (1769–1858Google Scholar) wrote Conversations on Chemistry (1806)Google Scholar, Conversations on Political Economy (1816)Google Scholar, Conversations on Natural Philosophy (1819)Google Scholar—all of which passed through numerous editions—and children's stories. She married in 1799 Dr. Alexander Marcet, F.R.S., chemist, discoverer of xanthine and collaborator with Berzelius. An affectionate friendship existed between Mrs. Marcet and Mrs. Somerville from the time of their meeting in 1817. Conversations on Chemistry was the most popular elementary chemistry book in Great Britain and the United States for more than 30 years. Faraday as a lad of 18 encountered the Conversations when binding the book and from it had his first instruction in chemistry and electrochemistry; he always expressed “deep veneration” for Mrs. Marcet as his earliest teacher in the science (see Williams, L. P., Michael Faraday (New York, Basic Books, 1965), 19–20Google Scholar, and Smith, E. F., “Jane Marcet”, Old Chemistries (New York, McGraw-Hill, 1927), 64–71).Google Scholar

6 Caroline Herschel (1750–1848), sister of Sir William Herschel and aunt of Sir John, assisted her brother in his astronomical work, discovered eighl comets, several nebulae and star clusters herself, and in 1798 prepared a star catalogue. In her note of thanks to Augustus De Morgan, Secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society, for his letter notifying her of her election to an honorary membership in the body, Miss Herschel expresses “… regret that at the feeble age of 85 I have no hope of making myself deserving of the great honour of seeing my name joined with that of the much distinguished Mrs. Somerville” (see MrsHerschel, John, Memoir and Correspondence of Caroline Herschel (New York, 1876), 271Google Scholar). Mrs. Somerville regarded all the Herschels with deep admiration and affection.

7 Maria Mitchell (1818–1889), astronomer, discoverer of a comet, first women professor of astronomy and director of the observatory at Vassar College, first woman member of the American Academy of Arts and Science, and early Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Her journal contains a long account of her meeting with Mrs. Somerville in Florence in 1858, ending with the statement, “Mrs. Somerville at the age of 77 was interested in every new improvement, hopeful, cheery and happy. Her society was sought by the most cultivated people in the world.” See Mitchell, Maria, Life, Letters and Journals, compiled by Kendell, P. M. (Boston, Mass., 1896), 159–163Google Scholar. Miss Mitchell kept a plaster bust of Mrs. Somerville in her parlour at the Vassar Observatory (ibid., 217).

8 “Mary Somerville probably has no rival among women as a scientific scholar,” McCarthy, Justin, A History of Our Own Times, new edition (London, 1882), ii, 244.Google Scholar

9 Somerville, Martha (ed.), Personal Recollections from Early Life to Old Age of Mary Somerville (London, John Murray, 1874), 6.Google Scholar

10 Lord Thomas Fairfax was a member of the younger branch of the Yorkshire family.

11 Washington's half-brother and guardian, Lawrence Washington, married Anne Fairfax, whose cousin, the sixth Lord Fairfax, owned enormous estates in Virginia and Pennsylvania. This Lord Fairfax was Washington's earliest patron, engaging the 16-year-old youth to survey some of the American holdings; the Fairfax-Washington connection was a strong one; see the first volume of Freeman, D. S.'s George Washington (New York, Scribner's, 1948)Google Scholar for a detailed account of the Fairfaxes and Washingtons in Virginia. Mrs. Somerville erroneously claims that Washington's mother was a Fairfax, (op. cit. (9), 227).Google Scholar

12 The house in which the family lived, given to Adm. Fairfax by his father-in-law in 1789, still stands. In 1957 two early seventeenth-century painted ceilings of great interest were accidentally discovered in it. See “Painted Ceilings from Mary Somerville House”, by Apted, M. R., Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, xci (1957–1958), 144–176.Google Scholar

13 Somerville, , op. cit. (9), 20.Google Scholar

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid. Mrs. Somerville's beauty is also mentioned in published and unpublished letters of several early nineteenth-century notables, among them Maria Edgeworth, Harriet Martineau and Charles Greville; they also praise her manner, intelligence, character and learning.

17 The magazine is not yet identified with certainty. It may have been an issue of The Ladies' Diary, about which the mathematician John Playfair remarked in 1808, “… It has now been continued for more than a century; the poetry, enigmas & c. which it contains are in the worst taste possible;… the scraps of literature and philosophy … childish or … old-fashioned … but the geometrical part.… has always been conducted in a superior style; the problems proposed have tended to awaken curiosity, and the solutions to convey instruction in a much better manner than is always to be found in more splendid publications.” See Playfair, John, “Art. I. La Place, Traité de Mécanique céleste”, Edinburgh Review, ii (01 1808), 282.Google Scholar

18 Mary Somerville quotes her teacher, the landscape artist Alexander Nasmyth, as saying to the Ladies Douglas, “You should study Euclid's Elements of Geometry; the foundation not only of perspective, but of astronomy and all mechanical science.” She instantly realized on hearing these words that geometry would help her to understand the books on navigation in the Fairfax household. Somerville, , op. cit. (9), 49.Google Scholar

19 “… as to going to a bookseller and asking for Euclid the thing was impossible. Besides I did not yet know anything definite about algebra, so no more could be done at that time; but I never lost sight of an object which had interested me from the first.” Ibid. Mary Fairfax persuaded her younger brother's new tutor, Peter Craw, to buy the books for her in Edinburgh. Craw was a classical scholar and knew little mathematics.

20 Ibid., 20.

21 Ibid., 75.

22 Greig, Woronzow (1805–1865)Google Scholar, educated at Charterhouse and Trinity College, Cambridge, was a widely-respected barrister-at-law and Clerk of the Peace for Surrey.

23 Wallace in a letter dated 12 July 1811 (Somerville Collection) reports to Mrs. Grieg [sic] that he was in Edinburgh for delivery to her a silver medal, her prize as winner, for her solution of the Prize Question for the Mathematical Repository. Such a medal is now in the possession of Sir Brian Fairfax-Lucy, bearing the legend, “Mariae Greig, L.M.D. Palmam qui meruit Ferat”. The mathematics books are listed on pages 79 and 80 of her Personal Recollections; all except Biot's Analytical Geometry and Astronomy are now at Girton College.

24 Somerville, , op. cit. (9), 61.Google Scholar

25 Ibid. See also Cobbe, F. P.'s “People One Meets in Italy” in Italics (London, 1864), 437–445Google Scholar for a description of Mrs. Somerville in her 84th year.

26 Somerville, William (1771–1860)Google Scholar was a graduate in medicine of the University of Aberdeen.

27 On 11 December 1817.

28 Maria Edgeworth wrote Mrs. Edgeworth from Beechwood Park on 16 January 1822 of the Somerville establishment in Hanover Square, “… Dr. Wollaston & Dr. Holland—and Mr. Warburton and Kater & all the scientific and literary society in London drop … in … daily to call…” (Edgeworth Letters, Bodleian Library).

29 The prism is now at Greenwich, deposited there by Mrs. Somerville's present heir, Sir Brian Fairfax-Lucy. Mrs Somerville in speaking of her life in London between 1816 and 1830 says (op. cit. (9), 133–134Google Scholar) that she was “… among the first, if not the very first, to whom he [Dr. Wollaston] showed these lines …”, a puzzling statement since Wollaston reported his discovery in 1802 (see Phil. Trans., 1802, 385–386).Google Scholar

30 Among the Somerville papers is a note from Wollaston written from Dorset Street on 7 December 1828 desiring Mrs. Somerville to retain the cabinet “… as a token of friendship”. No trace of the Wollaston scientific papers, said to have been bequeathed to Mrs. Somerville through Henry Warburton (see DNB), has been uncovered in the Somerville Collection to date.

31 A short note in the Somerville Collection, from Charles Babbage to Mrs. Somerville, is exemplary on this point: “My dear Mrs. Somerville/Prof. Powell's paper on Dispersion was read ‘popularly at the British Assn. at Dublin and has I believe been printed fully either in the last Vol. of the Phil. Trans. or in that which is about to appear. It is the following of Cauchys Analysis and comparing it with (I think) Frauenhofers experiments/I am sincerely yours/C Babbage/Dorset St./8 Oct 1835.”

32 “On the Magnetizing Power of the more Refrangible Solar Rays”, by Mrs. M. Somerville. Communicated by Somerville, William, M.D., F.R.S., 02 2, 1826. Phil. Trans., cxvi (1826), 132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 SirHerschel, John, “Mechanism of the Heavens”, Quarterly Review, xlvii (07 1832), 547–548.Google Scholar

34 The Viennese professor, A. Baumgartner, for example, suggested some modifications in the procedure used by Mrs. Somerville (and earlier by M. Morichini) but supported her results and conclusions in a repetition of the study. See Baumgartner, , “Sur l'Aimantation de l'acier par la lumière blanche directe du soleil”, Ann. chim. phys., xxxiii (1826), 333–335.Google Scholar

35 Riess, Peter and Moser, Ludwig, “Ueber die magnetisirende Eigenschaft des Sonnenlichts”, Annalen der Physik und Chemie, xcii (1829), 563–592.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 Comptes rendus, iii (1836), 473–476Google Scholar. Arago, in presenting the extract of a letter from Mrs. Somerville as a paper entitled, “Experiments on the Transmission of Chemical Rays of the Solar Spectrum across Different Media”, states that he offers “… aux intéressantes expériences d'une personne si éminement distinguée, toute la publicité des séances de l'Académie et du Compte rendu”.

37 “On the action of the Rays of the Spectrum on Vegetable Juices”, being an extract from a letter by Mrs. M. Somerville to Sir John Herschel, Bart., dated Rome, 20 September, 1845. Communicated by SirHerschel, John F. W., Bart., F.R.S. Abstr. Phil. Trans., v (1843–1850), 569.Google Scholar

38 Hand numbered, “34”. Manuscript is in the Somerville Collection.

39 Geikie in his Annals of the Royal Society Club (London, 1917)Google Scholar lists Dr. Somerville as being twice a guest, once in 1821 (p. 274) and again in 1824 (p. 284). The dining club bills among the Somerville papers indicate a high degree of sociability.

40 Much of Mrs. Somerville's scientific correspondence, especially in the period 1817–1840, was carried on through Dr. Somerville. Typical of such letters is one from Francis Baily, dated 3 February 1833, beginning, “My dear Sir/I should be most happy to answer Mrs. Somerville's enquiries, relative to the compression of the earth, as deduced from geodesical measurements, & from experiments on the pendulum …” (Somerville Collection). Dr. Somerville also made use of the library of the Royal Society for his wife, as well as arranging her introduction to members and visitors. He was, in short, from the very first an admirable aide.

41 Maria Edgeworth (unpublished letter dated 11 March 1822, Bodleian Library): “My dear Sneyd … She [Mrs. Somerville] has a combination of talent… science and good household qualities which make her adored of her husband at home and all the world abroad …”

42 J. G. Children, officially informing Mrs. Somerville of a decision concerning her made by the Royal Society, wrote in a letter dated 19 February 1832 that the members of the Society would “… honour Science, their country and themselves, in paying this proud tribute to the powers of the female mind—and at the same time establish an imperishable record of the perfect compatibility of the most exemplary discharge of the softer duties of domestic life, with the deepest researches in Mathematical Philosophy…” (Somerville Collection).

43 Preserved among the Somerville papers is a clipping from an English newspaper, dated in Mary Somerville's hand “May 1869” but not otherwise identified, which contains the sentence, “The assertion that if women are educated scientifically they will cease to be ‘domestic and feminine’ in their tastes has never met a more thorough contradiction than in the instance of the most scientifically educated and competent woman of her age [Mrs. Somerville]”. Nature (2 04 1872, 417Google Scholar) says of Mrs. Somerville, “No one … could possibly have afforded a stronger refutation of the axiom, almost universally upheld a century ago, that scientific acquirements of a high order are wholly incompatible with the proper exercise of the natural and ascribed functions of a woman's destiny …”

44 Somerville, , op. cit. (9), 161–162Google Scholar. The original of this letter is in the Somerville Collection.

45 Earlier Playfair, in his 1808 review of Laplace's Mécanique céleste (op. cit. (17), 281Google Scholar) had made a comparison of mathematics in France and England, to the discredit of the latter. “If we come to works of still greater difficulty [than those of Euler and D'Alembert], such as the Mécanique céleste, we will venture to say, that the number of those in this island who can read the work with any tolerable facility, is small indeed … we shall not hardly exceed a dozen …”

46 Somerville, , op. cit. (9), 109–111Google Scholar. A brief account of Mrs. Somerville's visit to Arcueil is reproduced in: Crosland, M. P., The Society of Arcueil (London, Heinemann, 1967), p. 411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47 Somerville, Mary, The Mechanism of the Heavens (London, John Murray, 1831).Google Scholar

48 “Mary Somerville” in The Leisure Hour (London, 10 1871), 634.Google Scholar

49 Herschel reviewed the book for the Quarterly Review (op. cit. (33), 537–559Google Scholar). Thomas Galloway, a respected mathematician and son-in-law and former pupil of Mrs. Somerville's teacher, John Wallace, wrote the piece for the Edinburgh Review (see Edinburgh Review, iv (08 1832), 1–25Google Scholar). Both these lengthy reviews are admiring, while a shorter one in The Athenaeum (No. 221, 21 January 1832, 43–44) divides itself between a derisory attack on Brougham's idea of putting Laplace in “the hands of the unwashed” and condemnation of Mrs. Somerville for attempting “to bottle up the spirit of Laplace in an octavo”. Almost 40 years later the same journal (No. 2154, 6 February 1869, 202) in a review of Mrs. Somerville's last book refers to The Mechanism as “her admirable summary of the Mécanique céleste of Laplace”.

50 Somerville, , op. cit. (9), 170–175Google Scholar. The originals of these letters are in the Somerville Collection, which contains many other congratulatory messages on the work.

51 The bust is still in possession of the Royal Society. Part of the official letter of the Secretary, J. G. Children, to Mrs. Somerville on this action has been quoted in (42).

52 The list is preserved among the Somerville papers. Sixty-four subscribers, headed by the Duke of Sussex, are shown as contributing a total of 144 guineas.

53 Procés-verbaux, x, 23 (13 02 1832).Google Scholar

54 Somerville, Mary, A Preliminary Dissertation on the Mechanism of the Heavens (London, John Murray, 1832).Google Scholar

55 Carey and Lea published an edition in Philadelphia in 1832.

56 Somerville, , op. cit. (9), 170–172Google Scholar. The original letter and poem are in the Somerville Collection. Whewell wrote his sister on 13 March 1832 that he wanted to make the mathematics book he was then preparing for “… the Cambridge folks … correspond with [Mrs. Somerville's], so that they may each help to make the other intelligible and useful”. See Life of Dr. Whewell by MrsDouglas, Stair (London, 1881), 143.Google Scholar

57 Somerville, , op. cit. (9), 172Google Scholar. Peacock's letter is among the Somerville papers.

58 Ibid., 178.

59 Somerville, Mary, On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences (London, John Murray, 1834).Google Scholar

60 The article for the Edinburgh Review (lix, (04 1834), 154–171Google Scholar) was written by Sir David Brewster, the one for the Quarterly Review (li (03 1834), 54–68Google Scholar) by William Whewell. It is in the latter article that Whewell suggest the name “scientist” to “… designate the students of the knowledge of the material world …”; he concludes his review with his verses to Mrs. Somerville (see (56)). The Athenaeum (No. 33, 15 March 1834, 202–203) calls the volume “delightful” and “… with the exception of Sir John Herschel's treatises, the most valuable and pleasing work of science that has been published within the century”.

61 Augustus De Morgan, Secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society, to Mrs. Somerville, 13 February 1835, officially notifying her of her election (Somerville Collection). See also Royal Astronomical Society Monthly Notices, iii, 1835, 91.Google Scholar

62 Hamilton, W. R. to MrsSomerville, , 27 05 1834Google Scholar (Somerville Collection); the diploma is also among these papers.

63 W. D. Coneybeare to Mrs. Somerville, n.d. (Somerville Collection). Coneybeare, and Prichard, 's The West of England Journal (Bristol, 1835–1836Google Scholar) applauds Physical Sciences in a review (pp. 247–250) of the second edition that points to “connexion” as indicating “… the uniformity or identity of the laws to which…sciences are subjected…” and also the“… subserviency …” of some sciences to others.

64 Somerville, , op. cit. (9) 209–210Google Scholar. The letter from Mrs. Marcet here quoted and a diploma dated 3 Avril 1834 are among the Somerville papers.

65 Herschel “… pronounced it [The Mechanism] a book for posterity and above the class for whose instruction it had been intended by Mr. Brougham”. See Smiles, Samuel, A Publisher and His Friends: Memoir and Correspondence of the Late John Murray (London, John Murray, 1891), ii, 406–410.Google Scholar

66 The letters from Murray are in the Somerville Collection.

67 Both Murray and his son had close connections with the scientific as well as the literary life of their times. Smiles (op. cit. (65), i, 264Google Scholar) describes Murray's drawing-room in Albemarle Street in the second decade of the nineteenth century as “… the centre of literary friendship and intercommunication at the West End … for the association of gentlemen known for their literary, artistic or scientific attainments” until the establishment of the Athenaeum Club in 1823. Murray published the works of such scientists and scientific travellers as Lyell, Murchison, Sir John Franklin, Capt. Basil Hall, Capt. Sabine, Sir James Ross and Charles Darwin. Mrs. Somerville met and corresponded with all these gentlemen. Murray's Quarterly Review featured many articles of scientific interest.

68 Ibid., ii, 407. The letter is in the Somerville Collection.

69 Accounts rendered and business correspondence between the Somervilles and the Murrays for the period 1831–1875 are part of the Somerville Collection and reflect each of these points.

70 The successive editions appeared in 1834, 1835, 1836, 1837, 1840, 1842, 1846, 1848, 1858 and 1877, the last one having additional material by Arabella B. Buckley.

71 Maxwell, J. C., “Grove's Correlation of Physical Forces”, Scientific Papers (Cambridge, 1890), ii, 401Google Scholar. Maxwell wrote the review of Grove's book for Nature in 1874.

72 “Those [the tables of motion] of Uranus, however, are already defective, probably because the discovery ofthat planet in 1781 is too recent to admit of much precision in the determination of its motion, or that possibly it may be subject to disturbance from some unseen planet revolving about the sun beyond the present boundaries of our system. If, after a lapse of years, the tables formed from a combination of numerous observations should still be inadequate to represent the motions of Uranus, the discrepancies may reveal the existence, nay even the mass and orbit of a body placed forever beyond the sphere of vision.” The same words and pagination (page 60) are found in the 6th and 7th editions. In the 8th edition (again page 60) these sentences are followed by the words, “That prediction has been fulfilled since the seventh edition of this book was published …” and an account of the work of Adams and Leverrier follows.

73 See Personal Recollections (op. cit. (9), 290Google Scholar). Also, among some rough autobiographical jottings in the Somerville Collection is Mrs. Somerville's note, “… spend time with Airy and Adam [sic] the latter tells Mr. S. that a remark of mine in Phys Sci put it into his head to compute the orbit of Neptune, if I had possessed originality or genius I might have done it (a proof that originality in discovery is not given to women???) …”. Her strong support of Adams in the Adams-Leverrier controversy was the real reason, according to Cobbe, F. P. (see Life of Frances Power Gobbe by Herself (Boston, 1894, ii, 350–351Google Scholar)) why Sir G. B. Airy refused, as Astronomer Royal, to make the necessary formal request for Mrs. Somerville's burial in Westminster Abbey after all other arrangemements for this honour had been concluded. Further investigation of relations between the Somervilles and Airys is in hand.

74 Somerville, , op. cit. (9), 208–209Google Scholar. A letter from Brougham to Mrs. Somerville on the subject of Thomas Young is in the Somerville Collection.

75 Maxwell, (op. cit. (71), 402Google Scholar) speaks of “… the universal facility and occasional felicity of expression that distinguish Mrs. Somerville's writing”.

76 Somerville, , op. cit. (9), 177Google Scholar. The original letter, dated simply March 1835, is in the Somerville Collection. J. W. Croker, in an undated letter to Peel, probably written on 18 January 1835 (see The Croker Papers, 2nd ed. revised, edited by Jennings, L. J. (London, John Murray, 1885), ii, 257–259Google Scholar) strongly recommends a civil pension for Mrs. Somerville, whom he says he has never seen. He tells Peel that he has heard “… a whisper that Brougham had promised to do something for them [the Somervilles], and that they think he played false with them …”.

77 Reingold touches on this matter in his “Babbage and Moll on the State of Science in Great Britain”, Brit. J. for the Hist, of Sci., iv (1968–1969), 59.Google Scholar

78 Croker, , op. cit. (76)Google Scholar. Peel, in a letter from Whitehall dated 29 January 1835, tells Croker, “I must be very cautious not to confine pensions to Whigs or Liberal professors of literature”.

79 Peel initiated the pension for Faraday but, upon his leaving office in mid-April 1835, it fell to Melbourne to bestow it. The famed interview between Faraday and Melbourne has often been recounted; its outcome was that Faraday accepted both Melbourne's apology and a pension (equal to that previously given Mrs. Airy at Airy's request). See Jones, H. Bence, Life and Letters of Faraday (London, 1870), ii, 57.Google Scholar

80 Mrs. Somerville states (op. cit. (9), 178Google Scholar) that the increase came about through “… the kindness of Lord John Russell, who was then the Prime Minister …”, but the official correspondence in the Somerville papers shows that Lord Melbourne made the recommendation. Russell was at that time Home Secretary in Melbourne's cabinet and leader of the House of Commons. William IV signed the King's Warrant for both grants, one on 6 May 1835 and the other on 10 August 1837. Mrs. Somerville lists Lord Melbourne as a guest at dinner parties which they attended in early London years.

81 Some sense of the regard in which Mrs. Somerville was held by her contemporaries is reflected in the comment made by Mary Russell Mitford, who also received a civil pension of £100 from Melbourne in 1837. Miss Mitford, writing to a friend on 31 May 1837 to tell her of the grant, says, “The sum is small but that cannot be considered as derogatory … it being … the amount given … to Mrs. Hemans and Mrs. Somerville”. See Watson, V., Mary Russell Mitford (London, Evans Bros., n.d.), 229.Google Scholar

82 Somerville, , op. cit. (9), 178.Google Scholar

83 Somerville, Mary, “Astronomy—The Comet”, Quarterly Review, cv (12 1835), 195–233.Google Scholar

84 Littrow, Von's Ueber den Halleyschen Cometen (Wein, 1835)Google Scholar and Encke, von's Ueber den Halleyschen Cometen (Berliner Jahrbuch, 1835).Google Scholar

85 Woronzow Greig, in a letter to his mother and Dr. Somerville dated 10 November 1847 concerning their financial plight, points out that by proper management and economy their debts could be reduced to £53 16s. 5½d., “which my mother could easily pay off by writing a paper or two for a Review” (Somerville Collection).

86 Somerville, Mary, Physical Geography (London, John Murray, 1848).Google Scholar

87 The successive editions are dated 1848, 1849, 1851, 1858, 1862, 1870 and 1877. The last two editions were revised by H. W. Bates.

88 The geographer Keith Johnston published a small School Atlas of Ancient, Modern and Physical Geography intended to be used with Mrs. Somerville's Physical Geography.

89 The full account of the anniversary meeting of the Society at which the presentation was made, reported in The Times of Tuesday, 25 May 1869, is one of the few newspaper clippings among the Somerville papers.

90 The diploma is dated 27 August 1856 (Somerville Collection).

91 The diploma is dated 15 May 1870 (Somerville Collection).

92 To judge from the diplomas in the Somerville Collection, Mrs. Somerville was made a member of at least eighteen different scientific societies, ten of them in Italy, from 1835 onwards.

93 The diploma is dated 18 May 1857 (Somerville Collection).

94 The diploma is dated 15 October 1869 (Somerville Collection).

95 Including the Victor Emmanuel Gold Medal, 30 June 1869 (Somerville Collection).

96 Somerville, , op. cit. (86), 2.Google Scholar

97 The first volume of Kosmos appeared in 1848, the last posthumously in 1862.

98 See Théodoridès, J., “Humboldt and England”, Brit. J. for the Hist, of Sei., iii (1966–1967), 46.Google Scholar

99 Somerville, , op. cit. (9), 159.Google Scholar

100 Ibid., 287–289. A letter from Humboldt with a sketch of Halley's comet is among the Somerville papers.

101 Mitchell, , op. cit. (7), 166.Google Scholar

102 Somerville, Mary, On Molecular and Microscopic Science (London, John Murray, 1869).Google Scholar

103 The 1873 business statement from Murray carries the note, “The molecular science has never yet repaid the cost of production. There is to date a deficiency of £89–2–8d. J. M.” (Somerville Collection).

104 Correspondence about the fate of this book went on among Mrs. Somerville, John Murray, Mrs. Woronzow Greig, Martha Somerville, and Sir John Herschel from 1866 until its appearance in 1869 (Somerville Collection). In 1868, in a letter dated 10 January, Murray urged Mrs. Somerville to withdraw the manuscript after he had received an unfavourable report from his reader, “… a competent man of science [not otherwise identified] in whose opinion no partial revision or correction of the sheets would suffice” and who “… declined to undertake the task”. Murray concludes the letter with the statement, “It would require to be re-written in great part. Such are the extent and nature of the changes in science as seen in the nomenclature of terms which have taken place since you began writing it.” His principal criticisms of the work were, in addition to the old-fashioned terminology used, “… the discovery of numerous serious errors in the sheets”, the vast amount of material included (so much that he feared it would deter most readers), and the absence of chapter divisions and indices. He was concerned also with the steadily mounting costs of production, as Mrs. Somerville requested the reproduction of more and more woodcuts in the volume.

105 Asked to read the manuscript, Sir John, in a letter to Martha Somerville dated 3 January 1867 (Somerville Collection), makes a number of tactful suggestions about the rewording of confused passages and the reduction of detailed material, as well as correcting spelling errors, altering the style occasionally, and advising the removal or rewriting of some passages. After these changes he was able to assure Murray that the portion of the work on the constitution of matter was acceptable and an editor (Thomas Moore, the horticultural expert and writer) was hired to read the second part, with the stipulation that any changes he made must have Mrs. Somerville's approval. The book finally appeared in January 1869, its preface carrying the author's thanks to Sir John, Moore, John Tyndall, Gwyn Jeffrey and “Mr. Huggins” (probably William Huggins, the astronomer), “… who have aided in revising some of the sheets for the press…”.

106 The Saturday Review (London, 13 02 1869, 219)Google Scholar begins its article on the book with the sentence, “Among the many marvels of nature which Mrs. Somerville has made it her task through life to expound or illustrate, she might herself, to our thinking, be set down as by no means the least worthy of the mark”, but later on comments that “… she has not got so far as the strict modern view of matter”, referring to “her rhetorical view of the atom”. Sir Roscoe, H. E., reviewing the book for the Edinburgh Review (cxxx, 07 1869, 137–163Google Scholar) pays tribute to its publication as “… a case without parallel in the annals of science …” and gracefully refers to Mrs. Somerville's 80 years, then tactfully deplores her failure to place the principle of conservation of energy, “the keystone upon which the structure of modern science rests … so prominently in the foreground of her work as might be advisable”.

107 Somerville, , op. cit. (9), 338.Google Scholar

108 This manuscript is in the Somerville Collection.

109 Somerville, , op. cit. (9), 178.Google Scholar

110 The 8th Duke of Argyll has an interesting account of his meeting with Mrs. Somerville in Rome during the winter of 1844; he became a devoted friend (see Autobiography and Memoirs of George Douglas, 8th Duke of Argyll, , K.G., K.T., edited by the Dowager Duchess of Argyll (London, John Murray, 1906), i, 255–257).Google Scholar

111 Including the private library in the Pitti Palace of the Grand Duke Leopold II of Tuscany. See Somerville, , op. cit. (9), 234.Google Scholar

112 Ibid., 240. R. A. Proctor, in his obituary notice for Mrs. Somerville (see Royal Astronomical Society Monthly Notices, xxxiii, 4 02, 1873, 190–197)Google Scholar says that Mrs. Somerville, then in Italy, was “… debarred the sight of the … comet of 1843 … [because] the only Italian observatory which afforded the necessary implements was in a Jesuit establishment, where no woman was allowed to pass the threshold”.

113 Preface to On Molecular and Microscopic Science, op. cit. (102).

114 Introduction to Physical Geography, 3rd ed. (1851)Google Scholar, op. cit. (86).

115 No letters from any of them have as yet been found in the Somerville Collection.

116 Somerville, , op. cit. (9), 364.Google Scholar

117 Ibid., 377 pages.

118 Ibid., 1.

119 Kuhn, Thomas S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1962), 10Google Scholar. “Textbook” is used in the American sense.

120 Reference has already been made to Mrs. Somerville's ability to look into, in Maxwell's happily chosen phrase, “… the depths of futurity”. Op. cit. (71).

121 An increased awareness both of science and of mass education in the first half of the nineteenth century gave rise to a number of dictionaries, encyclopaedias and “libraries of literature, science and the arts”, among them Sir David Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclopedia, Brougham's Library of Useful Knowledge, Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia, Rees' Cyclopedia, and the Encyclopedia Metropolitana. All were frequently distinguished by articles from the pens of outstanding scientific men of the day.

122 Brewster, David, “Art. VI. A Treatise on Sound. By J. F. W. Herschell [sic], Esq., F.R.S. London and Edinburgh, &c. (In the Encyclopedia Metropolitana.) Lond. 1830”, Quarterly Review, xliv (02 1831), 476.Google Scholar

123 The volumes of the Cabinet Cyclopedia were written by different specialists, hence comparisons between these works and Mrs. Somerville's books are useful only within narrow limits, although identical topics are often covered in both. If a generalization may be risked, it is that her works are more informative and synthetical about the larger issues of scientific theory, experimentation and possible future developments, while the Cabinet volumes tend to be more explicit in their descriptions of apparatus and its use. Emphasis is always put by Mrs. Somerville on quantification and upon the newest views and discoveries. Compare, for example, her treatment of “chemical affinities” (op. cit. (59), 102–103Google Scholar) with its accent on electrical aspects and on Dalton's quantitative laws with Lardner's (see Kater, and Lardner, , A Treatise on Mechanics (London, 1837), 73–74Google Scholar) in which neither of these points is mentioned.

124 Both Murrays on occasion expressed concern lest Mrs. Somerville lose the “general reader” and urged her to write at a less demanding level. Herschel, in agreement with Murray on this point in the discussions about Molecular and Microscopic Science, put the argument very well when he wrote (op. cit. (105)) that too technical a presentation dismayed the ordinary reader while those greatly interested consulted the authorities cited. Proctor (op. cit. (112), 195Google Scholar) speaks of her efforts “… to please Mr. Murray…” by popularizing her text.

125 George Eliot in a letter to Maria Lewis dated 23 June 1840 says, “My excuse shall be a state of head that calls for 4 leeches before I can attack Mrs. Somerville's Connexion of the Physical Sciences”. See The George Eliot Letters, edited by Haight, G. S. (Oxford University Press, 1956), 1, 56.Google Scholar

126 Maxwell, , op. cit. (71), 402.Google Scholar

127 Somerville, op. cit. (59), all editions, preface.

128 Wollaston, W. H. to MrsSomerville, , 19 03 (no year) (Somerville Collection).Google Scholar

129 Wollaston, W. H. to MrsSomerville, , 4 01 1826 (Somerville Collection).Google Scholar

130 Faraday, Michael to DrSomerville, , 11 1833 (Somerville Collection).Google Scholar

131 Somerville, , op. cit. (59), 225.Google Scholar

132 Faraday, Michael, “Paragraphs 1377 and 1378”, Experimental Researches in Electricity, 2nd ed. (London, 1849), i, 438–439.Google Scholar

133 During her lifetime, Mrs. Somerville was venerated as a scientific authority. An amusing display of the regard in which she was held is afforded by a small pamphlet in the Yale University Library (New Haven, Connecticut). The brochure seeks to encourage the purchases of stock in the “Electro-Magnetic Association” formed to finance the further development and patenting of “Davenport's Electro-Magnetic Machine”, a rotary magnetic device invented by a Vermont blacksmith, Thomas Davenport, in 1834. Less than half the booklet is given over to a history of the inventor and his invention, excerpts from newspaper accounts praising the invention and an endorsement by Prof. Benjamin Silliman of Yale that had appeared in his American Journal of Science and Arts. Its remaining sixty pages are a reprint—no doubt pirated—of the material on “Electricity, Galvanism, Magnetism, Electro-Magnetism, Electro-Dynamics, Magneto-Electricity, Experiments by Arago and others, Terrestrial Magnetism &c., and Explanation of Terms” from the first edition of Mrs. Somerville's book. “As Electricity and Magnetism are comparatively modern sciences”, reads the introduction to the booklet, “and that of Electro-Magnetism is of very recent origin, we have made copius extracts from the able treatise of Mrs. Somerville, ‘on the connexion of the Physical Sciences’, for the information of those who have not time or inclination for researches in more elaborate works”. The pamphlet was published in New York in 1837 by G. & C. Carvill & Co. and G. F. Hopkins and Sons.

134 The handwriting of her correspondents is often equally unreadable.

135 The Mary Somerville, a vessel built for the China and India trade, disappeared on her maiden voyage, presumably lost in a typhoon in the China Sea.

136 The letter is from George Birkbeck.

137 Nathaniel Bowditch of Boston, U.S.A., author of a famed book on navigation and an excellent translation of Laplace, 's Mécanique céleste (1829–1838)Google Scholar. Both he and his son Henry were among Mrs. Somerville's American correspondents. Letters from almost a score of Americans, are found in the Somerville papers.

138 Boole, George (1815–1864)Google Scholar, professor of mathematics in Queen's College, Cork.

139 Dr. Barth translated Physical Geography into German.

140 Thomas Barnes, editor of The Times.

141 Sir David Baxter, wealthy linen manufacturer of Dundee.

142 Mme. Beckedorff was a member of Queen Charlotte's household in England and old friend of Caroline Herschel; they spent their last years in Hanover.

143 Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first American woman M.D. She lived in London after 1868 and treated some Somerville relatives.

144 Montague Brown was British consul at Genoa in 1865.

145 Charles Buller, M.P.

146 The Countess Bon-Brenzoni was an Italian poetess. Among her works is a long poem on modern astronomy (I Cieli) that includes some verses in praise of Mrs. Somerville. See Somerville, , op. cit. (9), 297–299.Google Scholar

147 Josephine Butler was an ardent advocate of woman's rights.

148 Letters in the Collection to Mrs. Somerville from her old friend the geographer Pentland, J. B. (11 01 1869Google Scholar) and from Murray, (9 01 1869 and 21 January 1869Google Scholar) assure her that “no Darwinism” will appear in the projected new edition of Physical Geography, the second since the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in November 1859. In that year Murray sent her a copy of this book (now in the possession of Somerville College) along with his Christmas greetings. Preserved among the memorabilia of the Collection and marked with the three pencilled asterisks which Mrs. Somerville used to denote material of special significance is Huxley's long review of the work, clipped from The Times of 26 December 1859.

149 Several letters from Darwin are in the Somerville Collection and he generously permitted her to use woodcuts from his book on orchids as illustrations in Molecular and Microscopic Science.

150 Bates, close friend and colleague of A. R. Wallace, is described (DNB) as “a staunch and thoroughgoing adherent of the Darwinian hypothesis”. His Naturalist on the Amazons (1863) was written largely because of the urgings of Darwin, who found Bates's material, particularly that on mimicry, valuable. Murray had been responsible for Bates's appointment in 1864 as assistant secretary of the Royal Geographical Society.

151 Among Mrs. Somerville's autobiographical notes is an account of her public denunciation in the House of Commons by “… Mr. Buller member of some place I have forgotten in the west of England …” [possibly Charles Buller, at the time M.P. from the Cornish borough of West Looe], following the publication of The Mechanism, and her speedy subsequent defence by Henry Warburton, M.P. from Dorset, whom she reports as saying, “Mr. Speaker I have read the book … & I can only say that there are not more than 5 men in Great Britain capable to have written it.” After the appearance of Physical Geography she was again denounced in the House of Commons and also from the pulpit of York Minster, this time for her support of the “geologists' views” of the age of the earth. A note with the copies of the book owned by Somerville College (2nd, 3rd and 6th editions) says, “The publication of the book led to a scene in the House of Commons and fulminations from pulpits.”

152 See (73) and (74).

153 Somerville, , op. cit. (9), 310–325.Google Scholar

154 Typical of the changes is the physical excision of the words “Roman Catholic” from a page of the second manuscript draft.

155 “The wine is here and is delicious—a thousand thanks to you now a teetotler which I shall never be”, wrote Mrs. Somerville to her son taking the cure at Bath. “I never drank water in my life and have no intention of ever doing so as long as you supply one with such sherry.” Letter from Mary Somerville to Woronzow Greig, 13 June 1863 (Somerville Collection). Comments of this sort were not considered appropriate for inclusion in Personal Recollections.

156 This volume, along with 125 others that belonged to Mary Somerville, were presented to the “Ladies College at Cambridge” (Girton College) by the Misses Martha and Mary Somerville in 1873, after their mother's death. Most of these volumes are inscribed to Mrs. Somerville by their authors. Somerville College, founded in 1879 and named “in honour of Mary Somerville, the mathematician, … [whose family] arms and motto were adopted by the College”, has a number of books that belonged to Mrs. Somerville and members of her immediate family, as well as portraits, some of her paintings, letters and memorabilia.

157 The school was conducted by Mr. Strange, who “… wore a powdered wig, with cannons at the ears, and a pigtail”, and was held in the public assembly rooms in George Street, Edinburgh. Somerville, , op. cit. (9) 41–42.Google Scholar

158 Reed was the village schoolmaster who taught Mary Fairfax astronomy and geography for a few hours one winter.

159 The word is almost illegible. It may be a reference to Burntisland or to the playwright, John Home, who was a friend of Margaret Charters Fairfax and whom Mary Fairfax met one winter in Edinburgh, or it may be still undeciphered.

160 During this Edinburgh period Mary Fairfax lived at the home of her mother's brother, William Henry Charters, who had returned to Scotland from India.

161 Alexander Nasmyth, a landscape painter, opened an academy in Edinburgh to teach young ladies painting. It was he who suggested that his pupils study Euclid. See (18).

162 See (19).

163 The words in the parentheses are doubtful; the rendition is the best guess from the writing.

164 Dunnikeir was the home of the Oswalds, whose youngest daughter was Mary Fairfax's age. She married the Earl of Elgin and was the mother of Lady Augusta Stanley, wife of the Dean of Westminster (see (73)). Mary Fairfax spent Christmas at Dunnikeir when she was 15 years old.