Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville Part 11

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 11: Mr. c.o.ke, of Holkham, afterwards Earl of Leicester.]

CHAPTER XIII.

RETURN TO ENGLAND--LETTER FROM HALLAM--TREATISE ON THE FORM AND ROTATION OF THE EARTH AND PLANETS--SECOND EDITION OF "CONNEXION OF PHYSICAL SCIENCES"--LETTERS FROM MARIA EDGEWORTH, MISS BERRY, LORD BROUGHAM, MRS.

MARCET, ADMIRAL SMYTH--DOUBLE STARS--ECLIPSE OF DOUBLE STARS--LETTER FROM ADMIRAL SMYTH--SIR WILLIAM HERSCHEL--NEBULae--LETTER FROM LORD ROSSE--LETTER FROM SIR JOHN HERSCHEL--SIR JAMES SOUTH'S OBSERVATORY--MR.

JOHN MURRAY--MISS BERRY--LORD DUDLEY--MR. BOWDITCH AND OTHER DISTINGUISHED AMERICANS--MRS. BROWNING WASHINGTON--LETTER FROM THE REV.

DR. TUCKERMAN--SIR WILLIAM FAIRFAX ATTACKED BY HIGHWAYMEN.

As soon as we returned to Chelsea, the "Connexion of the Physical Sciences" was published. It was dedicated to Queen Adelaide, who thanked me for it at a drawing-room. Some time after Somerville and I went to Scotland; we had travelled all night in the mail coach, and when it became light, a gentleman who was in the carriage said to Somerville, "Is not the lady opposite to me Mrs. Somerville, whose bust I saw at Chantrey's?" The gentleman was Mr. Sopwith, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, a civil and mining engineer. He was distinguished for scientific knowledge, and had been in London to give information to a parliamentary committee. He travelled faster than we did, and when we arrived at Newcastle he was waiting to take us to his house, where we were hospitably received by Mrs. Sopwith. His conversation was highly interesting, and to him I was indebted for much information on mining generally, and on the mineral wealth of Great Britain, while writing on Physical Geography. Many years after he and Mrs. Sopwith came and saw me at Naples, which gave me much pleasure. He was unlike any other traveller I ever met with, so profound and original were his observations on all he saw.

On coming home I found that I had made an error in the first edition of the "Physical Sciences," in giving 365 days 6 hours as the length of the civil year of the ancient Egyptians. My friend Mr. Hallam, the historian, wrote to me, proving from history and epochs of the chronology of the ancient Egyptians, that their civil year was only 365 days. I was grateful to that great and amiable man for copies of all his works while he was alive, and I am obliged to his daughter for an excellent likeness of him, now that he is no more.

FROM HENRY HALLAM, ESQ., TO MRS. SOMERVILLE.

WIMPOLE STREET, _March 12th, 1835_.

MY DEAR MADAM,

As you will probably soon be called upon for another edition of your excellent work on the "Connexion of the Physical Sciences," I think you will excuse the liberty I take in mentioning to you one pa.s.sage which seems to have escaped your attention in so arduous a labour.

It is in page 104, where you have this sentence:--

"The Egyptians estimated the year at 365 d. 6 h., by which they lost one year in every 14,601, their Sothiac period. They determined the length of their year by the heliacal rising of Sirius, 2782 years before the Christian era, which is the earliest epoch of Egyptian chronology."

The Egyptian civil year was of 365 days only, as we find in Herodotus, and I apprehend there is no dispute about it. The Sothiac period, or that cycle in which the heliacal rising of Sirius pa.s.sed the whole civil year, and took place again on the same day, was of 1461 years, not 14,601. If they had adopted a year of 365 d. 6 h., this period would have been more than three times 14,601; the excess of the sidereal year above that being only 9' 9", which will not amount to a day in less than about 125 years.

I do not see how the heliacal rising of Sirius in any one year could help them to determine its length. By comparing two successive years they could of course have got at a sidereal year; but this is what they did not do; hence the irregularity which produced the canicular cycle. The commencement of that cycle is placed by ancient chronologers in 1322 A.C. It seems not correct to call 2782 A.C.

"the earliest epoch of Egyptian chronology," for we have none of their chronology nearly so old, and in fact no chronology, properly so called, has yet been made out by our Egyptian researches. It is indeed certain that, if the reckoning by heliacal risings of Sirius did not begin in 1322, we must go nearly 1460 years back for its origin; since it must have been adopted when that event preceded only for a short time the annual inundation of the Nile. But, according to some, the year 1322 A.C. fell during the reign of Sesostris, to whom Herodotus ascribes several regulations connected with the rising of the Nile. Certainly, 2782 A.C. is a more remote era than we are hitherto warranted to a.s.sume for any astronomical observation.

Believe me, dear Mrs. Somerville, Very truly yours, HENRY HALLAM.

I refer you to Montucla, if you have any doubt about the Egyptian year being of 365 days without biss.e.xtile of any kind.

I had sent a copy of the "Mechanism of the Heavens" to M. Poisson soon after it was published, and I had received a letter from him dated 30th May, 1832, advising me to complete the work by writing a volume on the form and rotation of the earth and planets. Being again strongly advised to do so while in Paris, I now began the work, and, in consequence, I was led into a correspondence with Mr. Ivory, who had written on the subject, and also with Mr. Francis Baily, on the density and compression of the earth. My work was extensive, for it comprised the a.n.a.lytical attraction of spheroids, the form and rotation of the earth, the tides of the ocean and atmosphere, and small undulations.

When this was finished, I had nothing to do, and as I preferred a.n.a.lysis to all other subjects, I wrote a work of 246 pages on curves and surfaces of the second and higher orders. While writing this, _con amore_, a new edition of the "Physical Sciences" was much needed, so I put on high pressure and worked at both. Had these two ma.n.u.scripts been published at that time, they might have been of use; I do not remember why they were laid aside, and forgotten till I found them years afterwards among my papers. Long after the time I am writing about, while at Naples, I amused myself by repairing the time-worn parts of these ma.n.u.scripts, and was surprised to find that in my eighty-ninth year I still retained facility in the "Calculus."

The second edition of the "Physical Sciences" was dedicated to my dear friend, Sir John Herschel. It went through nine editions, and has been translated into German and Italian. The book went through various editions in the United States, to the honour, but not to the profit, of the author. However, the publisher obligingly sent me a copy. I must say that profit was never an object with me: I wrote because it was impossible for me to be idle.

I had the honour of presenting a copy of my book to the d.u.c.h.ess of Kent at a private audience. The d.u.c.h.ess and Princess Victoria were alone, and received me very graciously, and conversed for half an hour with me. As I mentioned before, I saw the young Princess crowned: youthful, almost child-like as she was, she went through the imposing ceremony with all the dignity of a Queen.

[A few letters from some of my mother's friends, written at this period, may prove of interest. They are chiefly written to thank her for copies of the Preliminary Dissertation or of the "Physical Sciences." One from Lord Brougham concerns my mother's estimate of the scientific merit of Dr. Young, for whom she had the sincerest admiration, considering him one of the first philosophers and discoverers of the age.]

FROM MISS EDGEWORTH TO MRS. SOMERVILLE.

EDGWORTHTOWN, _May 31st, 1832_.

MY DEAR MRS. SOMERVILLE,

There is one satisfaction at least in giving knowledge to the ignorant, to those who know their ignorance at least, that they are grateful and humble. You should have my grateful and humble thanks long ago for the favour--the honour--you did me by sending me that Preliminary Dissertation, in which there is so much knowledge, but that I really wished to read it over and over again at some intervals of time, and to have the pleasure of seeing my sister Harriet read it, before I should write to you. She has come to us, and has just been enjoying it, as I knew she would. For my part, I was long in the state of the boa constrictor after a full meal--and I am but just recovering the powers of motion. My mind was so distended by the magnitude, the immensity, of what you put into it!

I am afraid that if you had been aware how ignorant I was you would not have sent me this dissertation, because you would have felt that you were throwing away much that I could not understand, and that could be better bestowed on scientific friends capable of judging of what they admire. I can only a.s.sure you that you have given me a great deal of pleasure; that you have enlarged my conception of the sublimity of the universe, beyond any ideas I had ever before been enabled to form.

The great simplicity of your manner of writing, I may say of your _mind_, which appears in your writing, particularly suits the scientific sublime--which would be destroyed by what is commonly called fine writing. You trust sufficiently to the natural interest of your subject, to the importance of the facts, the beauty of the whole, and the adaptation of the means to the ends, in every part of the immense whole. This reliance upon your reader's feeling along with you, was to me very gratifying. The ornaments of eloquence dressing out a sublime subject are just so many proofs either of bad taste in the orator, or of distrust and contempt of the taste of those whom he is trying thus to captivate.

I suppose n.o.body yet has completely _mastered_ the tides, therefore I may well content myself with my inability to comprehend what relates to them. But instead of plaguing you with an endless enumeration of my difficulties, I had better tell you some of the pa.s.sages which gave me, ignoramus as I am, peculiar pleasure.... I am afraid I shall transcribe your whole book if I go on to tell you all that has struck me, and you would not thank me for that--you, who have so little vanity, and so much to do better with your time than to read _my_ ignorant admiration. But pray let me mention to you a few of the pa.s.sages that amused my imagination particularly, viz., 1st, the inhabitant of Pallas _going round_ his world--or who might go--in five or six hours in one of our steam carriages; 2nd, the moderate-sized man who would weigh two tons at the surface of the sun--and who would weigh only a few pounds at the surface of the four new planets, and would be so light as to find it impossible to stand from the excess of muscular force! I think a very entertaining dream might be made of a man's visit to the sun and planets--these ideas are all like dreamy feelings when one is a little feverish. I forgot to mention (page 58) a pa.s.sage on the propagation of sound.

It is a beautiful sentence, as well as a sublime idea, "so that at a very small height above the surface of the earth, the noise of the tempest ceases and the thunder is heard no more in those boundless regions, where the heavenly bodies accomplish their periods in eternal and sublime silence."

Excuse me in my trade of sentence-monger, and believe me, dear Mrs. Somerville, truly your obliged and truly your affectionate friend,

MARIA EDGEWORTH.

I have persuaded your dear curly-headed friend, Harriet, to add her own observations; she sends her love to you; and I know you love her, otherwise I would not press her to write her own _say_.

FROM MISS JOANNA BAILLIE TO MRS. SOMERVILLE.

HAMPSTEAD, _February 1st, 1832_.

MY DEAR MRS. SOMERVILLE,

I am now, thank G.o.d! recovered from a very heavy disease, but still very weak. I will not, however, delay any longer my grateful acknowledgments for your very flattering gift of your Preliminary Dissertation. Indeed, I feel myself greatly honoured by receiving such a mark of regard from one who has done more to remove the light estimation in which the capacity of women is too often held, than all that has been accomplished by the whole sisterhood of poetical damsels and novel-writing authors. I could say much more on this subject were I to follow my own feelings; but I am still so weak that writing is a trouble to me, and I have nearly done all that I am able.

G.o.d bless and prosper you!

Yours gratefully and truly, J. BAILLIE.

FROM MISS BERRY TO MRS. SOMERVILLE.

BELLEVUE, _18th September, 1834_.

MY DEAR MRS. SOMERVILLE,

I have just finished reading your book, which has entertained me extremely, and at the same time, I hope, improved my moral character in the Christian virtue of humility. These must appear to you such _odd_ results--so little like those produced on the great majority of your readers, that you must allow me to explain them to you.

Humbled, I must be, by finding my own intellect unequal to following, beyond a first step, the explanations by which you seek to make easy to comprehension the marvellous phenomena of the universe--humbled, by feeling the intellectual difference between you and me, placing you as much above me in the scale of reasoning beings, as I am above my dog. Still I rejoice with humility at feeling myself, in that order of understandings which, although utterly incapable of following the chain of your reasonings, calculations, and inductions--utterly deprived of the powers necessary _sic itur ad astra_--am yet informed, enlightened, and entertained with the series of sublime truths to which you conduct me.

In some foggy morning of November, I shall drive out to you at Chelsea and surprise you with my ignorance of science, by asking you to explain to me some things which you will _wonder any one_ can have so long existed without knowing. In the mean time, I wish you could read in any combination of the stars the probability of our often having such a season as this, of uninterrupted summer since April last, and when last week it was sobering into autumn, has now returned to enter summer again. The thermometer was at 83 in the shade yesterday, and to-day promises to be as much. We are delighted with our two months' residence at this place, which we shall see with regret draw towards a close the end of this month. October we mean to spend at Paris, before we return to the _nebulosities_ of London. During my residence in Paris, before we came here, I never had the good luck to meet with your friend M. Arago; had I not been reading your book, I should have begged you to give me a letter for him. But as it is, and as my stay at Paris will now be so short, I shall content myself with looking up at a respectful distance to all your great fixed stars of science, excepting always yourself, dear Mrs. Somerville. No "disturbing influence" will, I hope, ever throw me out of the orbit of _your_ intimacy and friendship, whose value, believe me, is most duly and accurately calculated by your ignorant but very affectionate friend,