Chapter VIII: Part 8

In May, 1757, he obtained a scholarship, and in the September following, while still only a junior soph, he began to take pupils, continuing to be employed, first as private, then as a college tutor, until in October, 1767, he became one of the head tutors of Trinity College. Meanwhile Watson had taken his degree of B.A. in January, 1759, being classed as second wrangler, which he seems to have considered, and not without reason, as the place of honour for the year; the senior wrangler, who was a member of St. John's, having, as it was generally believed, been unfairly preferred to him.

In October, 1760, he was elected a fellow of his college, and in November, 1764, on the death of Dr. Hadley, he was unanimously elected by the senate to the professorship of chemistry, although at that time he knew nothing of the science. Watson did not, however, disappoint the confidence that was placed by others in his abilities. With the assistance of an operator, whom he immediately sent for from Paris, and by shutting himself up in his laboratory, he acquired such an acquaintance with his new subject, as to enable him in about fourteen months to read his first course of lectures, which were honoured with a numerous attendance, and proved highly successful. Other courses followed which were equally well received; and, in 1768, he printed a synopsis of the principles of the science, under the title of 'Institutiones Metallurgicæ.'

Watson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1769, and for some years afterwards contributed many chemical papers to the 'Philosophical Transactions.' In 1771 he published 'An Essay on the Subjects of Chemistry, and their General Divisions.' In 1781 he published two volumes 12mo. of 'Chemical Essays;' a third appeared in 1782; and a fourth in 1786 completed the work, which has often been reprinted, and was long very popular. In connection with his chemical professorship, Watson obtained from Government, by proper representations, a salary of 100_l._ for himself, and for all future professors. He also paid some attention to theoretical and practical anatomy, as having a certain relation to the science of chemistry.

In October, 1771, on the death of Dr. Rutherforth, he unexpectedly obtained the lucrative and important office of Regius Professor of Divinity, and in that capacity, held the Rectory of Somersham in Huntingdonshire. At this time he had neither taken his degree of B.D. or D.D., and by his own account, seems to have known little more of theological learning than he did of chemistry seven years before. Yet such was his good fortune, or the reputation that he had established, for carrying an object whenever he took it in hand, that no other candidate appeared for the professorship, while his eloquence and ingenuity supplied the want of deeper erudition, and attracted as numerous audiences to the exercises in the schools at which he presided, as had ever attended his chemical lectures.

Watson himself, in the anecdotes of his life, gives the following account of this circumstance:--"I was not, when Dr. Rutherforth died, either Bachelor or Doctor in Divinity, and without being one of them I could not become a candidate for the Professorship. This puzzled me for a moment, I had only seven days to transact the business in, but by hard travelling, and some adroitness, I accomplished my purpose, obtained the King's mandate for a Doctor's degree, and was created Doctor on the day previous to that appointed for the examination of the candidates. Thus did I, by hard and incessant labour for seventeen years, attain at the age of thirty-four, the first office for honour in the University; and, exclusive of the mastership of Trinity College, I have made it the first for profit; I found the Professorship not worth quite 330_l._, and it is now worth 1000_l._ at least."

Watson's clerical preferment after this was very rapid. In 1773, through the influence of the Duke of Grafton, he obtained possession of a sinecure rectory in North Wales, which he was enabled to exchange during the course of the following year for a prebend in the Church of Ely. In 1780 he succeeded Dr. Plumtree as archdeacon of that diocese; the same year he was presented to the Rectory of Northwold in Norfolk, and in the beginning of the year following, received another much more valuable living, the Rectory of Knaptoft in Leicestershire, from the hands of the Duke of Rutland, who had been his pupil at the University. Lastly, in July, 1782, he was promoted to the bishopric of Llandaff, by the Prime Minister of that period Lord Shelburne, who hoped thereby both to gratify the Duke of Rutland, and also to secure an active partisan.

Watson, however, proved a very unmanageable bishop, and during the course of his political career was singularly free and independent in his sentiments. One of his first acts was to publish in 1783, 'A Letter to Archbishop Cornwallis on the Church Revenues, recommending an equalization of the Bishoprics.' This he did in spite of all that could be said to make him see that it would embarrass the Government, and at the same time do nothing to forward his own object. And so he continued to take his own way, and was very soon left to do so, without any party or person seeking either to guide or stop him.

In 1783 Bishop Watson had married the eldest daughter of Edward Wilson of Dalham Tower in Westmoreland. In the year 1789 he retired from politics and betook himself to an estate which he had at Calgarth, on the banks of Winandermere, occupying himself in educating his family, and in agricultural improvements, especially planting, for which he received a medal from the Society of Arts in 1789.

Previous to this, in 1786, his friend and former pupil, Mr. Luther, of Ongar in Essex, had left him an estate which he sold for more than 20,000_l._ Bishop Watson died on the 4th of June, 1816, in his seventy-ninth year. His writings are very numerous and miscellaneous in their character; some of the more well known are:--an 'Apology for Christianity,' written in 1776 in answer to Gibbon; a 'Collection of Theological Tracts, selected from various Authors, for the use of the Younger Students in the University,' in six volumes 8vo., 1785; 'Apology for the Bible, in a series of Letters addressed to Thomas Paine,' 1796; and, 'An Address to the People of Great Britain,' which went through fourteen editions, 1798.

One of the best practical results of his chemical studies was the suggestion which he made to the Duke of Richmond, at that time Master of the Ordnance, respecting the preparation of charcoal for gunpowder, by burning the wood in close vessels, a process very materially improving the quality of the powder, and which is now generally adopted.--_Anecdotes of the Life of Richard Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, written by himself._ London, 1817.--_Memoir by Dr. Thomas Young, Encyclopædia Britannica._--_English Cyclopædia._

JAMES WATT, LL.D., F.R.S. L. and E., &c.

MEMBER OF THE FRENCH INSTITUTE.

Born at Greenock on the Clyde, 1736. Died August 25, 1819.

To James Watt, philosopher, mechanician, and civil engineer, whose genius perfected the control of one of the greatest revealed powers yet given to man, may well be applied the saying of Wellington, "That which makes a great general makes a great artist, the power and the determination to overcome difficulties." Born with a sickly temperament, and prevented thereby from attending school, or indulging in the usual healthy play of children, Watt, unassisted by others, devoted his time to study, and in retirement and reflection laid the foundation of knowledge destined to bear such ample fruit. In addition to mere book knowledge, he early exhibited a partiality for mechanical contrivances and operations, and this determined him to commence his career as a mathematical instrument maker. For this purpose he set out for Glasgow in 1754, but owing to the limited resources of the town at that period, he finally decided on going to London, where, after great difficulty, he was apprenticed for a twelvemonth to an instrument maker in Finch Lane. At the end of his apprenticeship Watt, having become enfeebled from over attention to work, repaired to Greenock to recruit his health, and ultimately returned to Glasgow, where he was established by the authorities, within the precincts of the college as mathematical instrument maker to the University. In process of time Watt's shop became a favourite resort for professors as well as students, and he counted among his visitors Professor Simson, Drs. Black, Dick, and Moor;[47] but his most intimate friend, and the one most closely connected with his after life, was John Robison, a student at Glasgow, afterwards Professor of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh University, to whom the honour is due of having first directed Watt's attention to the steam-engine. The event which actually led to the commencement of his invaluable discoveries on this subject, was the entrusting to him the repair of a small model of Newcomen's engine, which the college possessed. In his endeavours to put this engine into working order, Watt was led to investigate thoroughly the properties of steam upon which its action depended; and ultimately in the spring of 1765, after many trials and untiring perseverance, he arrived at the great and simple idea of a separate condenser, into which the steam expanded; thereby preventing that wasteful expenditure of heat, which was the necessary result of the old plan of condensing the steam in the working cylinder, by admitting a jet of cold water directly under the piston. In addition to this Watt surrounded the cylinder with a second casing to be filled with the surplus steam, for the purpose of preventing radiation of heat, and closed in the top (which in Newcomen's engine had been left open for the sake of the pressure of the atmosphere upon the piston) by putting a cover on, with a hole and stuffing box for the piston rod to slide through; a plan which enabled steam pressure to be used in place of atmospheric. Newcomen's engine, at this time used only for pumping out water in mines, thus became a true steam-engine of immense power, capable of being worked with economy, and of being turned to the various uses to which science has since applied it. For these great improvements a patent, dated January 5, 1769, was taken out by Watt and Dr. Roebuck, the founder of the Carron iron works, with whom Watt had become acquainted. Little, however, was done for some years in manufacturing engines on a large scale; Roebuck fell into difficulties, while Watt, harassed, depressed in spirits, and in want of money, was forced to obtain employment as a civil engineer and land-surveyor. Among the many works that he was engaged on in this capacity may be mentioned: the Crinan Canal, afterwards completed by Rennie; the deepening of the river Clyde; improvements in the harbours of Ayr, Port Glasgow, and Greenock; the building of bridges at Hamilton and Rutherglen; and lastly, surveying and estimating a line of canal between Fort William and Inverness, which was subsequently executed by Telford on a larger scale than was then proposed, under the name of the Caledonian Canal. In the latter half of the year 1773 Roebuck's affairs came to a crisis; and Watt, through the agency of Dr. Small, having been brought into relation with Mr. Boulton, a man possessing an intimate knowledge of business, with extended views and a liberal spirit of enterprise, an arrangement was entered into between them, and the firm of Boulton and Watt established at Soho. This was the turning point in Watt's fortunes; under the vigorous management of Boulton, his great invention at length began to be appreciated, and the saving of fuel was found to be nearly three-fourths of the quantity consumed by Newcomen's engine. In 1775 an extension of the original patent until the year 1800 was obtained. This gave a fresh stimulus to Watt's fertile brain, and resulted in patents being taken out, between the years 1781-1785, for the rotatory motion of the sun and planet wheels (the crank having been pirated by Wasbrough), _the expansive principle of working steam_; _the double engine_; _the parallel motion_; _the smokeless furnace_; _the float to regulate the supply of water into the boiler_; and _the governor_. At a later period Watt also invented the indicator, by means of which the actual horse power of an engine could be ascertained. This beautiful series of inventions in a measure may be said to have perfected the machine, and at the present time the condensing steam engine differs in no material respect from the engine as Watt left it.

While residing at Birmingham, Mr. Watt's house became the resort of many learned men. In the meetings of the Lunar Society, held at Soho House, originated his experiments on water, and between him and Cavendish is the honour divided of having first promulgated the theory of its composition. During the dispute which arose upon this subject, Watt's reply, on a friend regretting that another should have carried off this honour, is worth recording, as showing the modest dignity of his character: "It matters not," said he, "whether Cavendish discovered this or I, it is discovered."

In the year 1800 Mr. Watt, having acquired an ample competency, ceased to take an active part in the business of the firm, and the remainder of his life was spent in retirement; but his active mind, still unwearied, continued to follow its natural bent. On two occasions afterwards, in 1811 and 1812, he gave proofs of the undiminished powers of his inventive genius. In the one instance he was induced, by his grateful recollections of his residence in Glasgow, to assist the proprietors of the waterworks there with a plan for supplying the town with better water, by means of a suction pipe laid across the Clyde to reach to the other side, where water of a very superior quality might be procured. This pipe was formed of cast iron, with flexible joints, after the manner of a lobster's tail, so as to accommodate itself to the bed of the river, and fully answered the purpose for which it was designed. In the other instance he was prevailed upon, by the earnest solicitation of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, to attend a deputation of the Navy Board, and to give, with his friend Captain Huddart and Mr. J. Jessop, an opinion upon the works then carrying on at Sheerness Dockyard, and the further ones projected by Messrs. Rennie and Whitby. On this occasion he no less gratified the gentlemen associated with him by the clearness of his general views, than by his knowledge of the details; and he received the thanks of the Admiralty for his services. In 1814 he yielded to the wishes of his friends, of Dr. Brewster especially, and undertook a revision of Professor Robison's articles on steam and steam-engines for an early edition of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, which he enriched with valuable notes, containing his own experiments on steam, and a short history of his principal improvements upon the engine itself. Among other mechanical contrivances of Mr. Watt's may be mentioned: a machine for copying letters; an instrument for measuring the specific gravity of fluids; a regulator lamp; a plan for heating buildings by steam; and a contrivance for drying linen. In his eighty-third year, Mr. Watt was still occupied in inventing a machine for copying statues, but this remained unfinished, death arrested his hand; he died in the year 1819, at Heathfield, in Staffordshire; and thus, full of years and honours, ended the life of a man who, though born in a secluded village town, and reared in comparative poverty, was yet enabled, by persevering industry and the happy gifts of nature, to contribute so greatly to the commercial prosperity of the world.

Mr. Watt was elected a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1784, of the Royal Society of London in 1785, and a corresponding member of the Batavian Society in 1787. In 1806 the honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him by the spontaneous and unanimous vote of the Senate of the University of Glasgow; and in 1808 he was elected, first a corresponding, and afterwards a foreign member of the Institute of France. A few years before his death it was intimated to him, by a message from Sir Joseph Banks, that, to use the words of Mr. Muirhead, the highest honour usually conferred in England on men of literature and science--namely a baronetcy, was open to him, should he desire it; but, although Watt felt flattered by this intimation, he determined, after consulting with his son, to decline the honour.

Five statues have been erected to the memory of this illustrious man, of which number the one in Westminster Abbey, by Chantrey, bears on its pedestal the famous inscription by Lord Brougham:--

NOT TO PERPETUATE A NAME
WHICH MUST ENDURE WHILE THE PEACEFUL ARTS FLOURISH
BUT TO SHEW
THAT MANKIND HAVE LEARNT TO HONOUR THOSE
WHO BEST DESERVE THEIR GRATITUDE
THE KING
HIS MINISTERS AND MANY OF THE NOBLES
AND COMMONERS OF THIS REALM
RAISED THIS MONUMENT TO
JAMES WATT
WHO DIRECTING THE FORCE OF AN ORIGINAL GENIUS
EARLY EXERCISED IN PHILOSOPHIC RESEARCH
TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF
THE STEAM ENGINE
ENLARGED THE RESOURCES OF HIS COUNTRY
INCREASED THE POWER OF MAN
AND ROSE TO AN EMINENT PLACE
AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS FOLLOWERS OF SCIENCE
AND THE REAL BENEFACTORS OF THE WORLD
BORN AT GREENOCK MDCCXXXVI
DIED AT HEATHFIELD IN STAFFORDSHIRE MDCCCXIX.

--_Muirhead's Translation of Arago's Historical Eloge of James Watt._ London, 1839.--_Memoir, by his son J. Watt_, _Encyclopædia Britannica_.--_Quarterly Review_, October, 1858.

WILLIAM H. WOLLASTON, M.D., P.R.S. &c.

Born August 6, 1766. Died December 22, 1828.

William Hyde Wollaston was born at East Dereham, a village sixteen miles from Norwich. His father was an astronomer of some eminence, who in the year 1800 published an extensive catalogue of the northern circumpolar stars. After a preparatory education, Wollaston entered at Caius College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of M.B. in 1787, and that of M.D. in 1793; soon afterwards he became a Tancred Fellow. During his residence at Cambridge, he devoted himself more to the study of astronomy than any other science.

On leaving Cambridge in 1789, he settled at Bury St. Edmunds, and began to practise as a physician, but met with so little success, that he soon removed to London. Shortly after his arrival, he became a candidate for the office of Physician to St. George's Hospital, but was defeated by the election of his principal opponent, Dr. Pemberton. It is stated that this circumstance had such an effect on Wollaston, that he declared, in a moment of pique, he would abandon the profession, and never more write a prescription, were it for his own father. This statement is, however, contradicted in a biographical notice of him, contained in the reports of the Astronomical Society, where it is affirmed that he continued to practise physic in London to the end of the year 1800, when an accession of fortune determined him to relinquish a profession he never liked, and to devote himself entirely to science.

On the 9th of May, 1793, Wollaston was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; and in June, 1797, appeared his first contribution to the 'Philosophical Transactions,' being a paper 'On Gouty and Urinary Concretions.' From this period until his decease, Wollaston was a constant contributor to the 'Transactions,' as well as to various scientific journals. His papers in the 'Philosophical Transactions' amount to thirty-nine, and, in addition to strictly chemical subjects, include memoirs in astronomy, optics, mechanics, acoustics, mineralogy, crystallography, physiology, and botany.

On the 30th of November, 1804, he was elected Junior Secretary to the Royal Society; and on the death of Sir Joseph Banks, in June, 1820, succeeded him in the President's chair, until the anniversary, November 30th of the same year, when he retired in favour of Sir Humphry Davy, to whom, at the election, he gave the whole weight of his influence.

In the years 1804-5 Wollaston first made known to the world the existence of the two metals, palladium and rhodium, which he found were contained in the ore of platinum, associated with osmium and iridium, two metals discovered about the same time by Mr. Tennant. In 1809 he showed that the supposed new metal, tantalum, was identical with columhium, previously discovered by Mr. Hatchett; and shortly before his death, he transmitted to the Royal Society a communication, constituting the Bakerian lecture of 1828, in which he fully describes his ingenius method of rendering platinum malleable. From this invention he is stated to have acquired more than 30,000_l._

Dr. Wollaston's knowledge was more varied, and his tastes less exclusive, than any other philosopher of his time, except Cavendish; but optics and chemistry are the two sciences in which he made the greatest discoveries. To him we owe the first demonstration of the identity of galvanism and common electricity, and the first explanation of the cause of the different phenomena exhibited by them. Dr. Wollaston was accustomed to carry on his experiments in the greatest seclusion, and with very few instruments; he was also endowed with an extreme neatness of hand, and invented the most ingenious methods of determining the properties and constituents of very minute quantities of matter. It is related by Dr. Paris (in his Life of Davy), that a foreign philosopher once calling on Wollaston with letters of introduction, expressed a great desire to see his laboratory. "Certainly," replied Wollaston, and immediately produced a small tray, containing some glass tubes, a blowpipe, two or three watch-glasses, a slip of platinum, and a few test-tubes.

Another anecdote is told of him, that, having been engaged one day in inspecting a monster galvanic battery constructed by Mr. Children, he accidentally met, on his way home, a brother chemist, who knew of Mr. Children's grand machine, and uttered something about the inconvenience of it being of such an enormous size; on this Wollaston seized his friend by the button, led him into a bye corner, where, taking from his waistcoat pocket a tailor's thimble which contained a galvanic arrangement, and pouring into it the contents of a small phial, he astonished his friend by immediately heating a platinum wire to a white heat. He also produced platinum wire so extremely fine as to be nearly imperceptible to the naked eye.

Towards the close of the year 1828, Wollaston became dangerously ill with disease of the brain. Feeling his end approaching, and being unable to write himself, he employed an amanuensis to write accounts of such of his discoveries and inventions as he was unwilling should perish with him; and in this manner some of his most important papers were communicated to the Royal Society. It is a curious fact, that, in spite of the extensive cerebral disease under which he laboured, his faculties continued unclouded to the very last. When almost at the point of death, one of his friends having observed, loud enough for him to hear, that he was unconscious of what was passing around him, Wollaston made a sign for pencil and paper, and then wrote down some figures, and after casting up the sum, returned the paper: the amount was found to be correct.

Dr. Wollaston died on the 22nd of December, 1828, at the age of sixty-two--only a few months before his great scientific contemporaries, Sir Humphry Davy and Dr. Thomas Young. He was buried in Chiselhurst churchyard, Kent. Dr. William Henry[48] gives the following summary of his character:--

"Dr. Wollaston was endowed with bodily senses of extraordinary acuteness and accuracy, and with great general vigour of understanding. Trained in the discipline of the exact sciences, he had acquired a powerful command over his attention, and had habituated himself to the most rigid correctness both of thought and language. He was sufficiently provided with the resources of the mathematics, to be enabled to pursue with success profound enquiries in mechanical and optical philosophy, the results of which enabled him to unfold the causes of phenomena not before understood, and to enrich the arts connected with those sciences by the invention of ingenious and valuable instruments. In chemistry he was distinguished by the extreme nicety and delicacy of his observations, by the quickness and precision with which he marked resemblances and discriminated differences, the sagacity with which he devised experiments and anticipated their results, and the skill with which he executed the analysis of fragments of new substances, often so minute as to be scarcely perceptible by ordinary eyes. He was remarkable, too, for the caution with which he advanced from facts to general conclusions; a caution which, if it sometimes prevented him from reaching at once the most sublime truths, yet rendered every step of his ascent a secure station, from which it was easy to rise to higher and more enlarged inductions."--_Weld's History of the Royal Society, with Memoirs of the Presidents._ London, 1848.--_Sketches of the Royal Society, &c., by Sir John Barrow, Bart., F.R.S._ London, 1849.

THOMAS YOUNG, M.D., F.R.S., &c.

MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE.

Born June 13, 1773. Died May 10, 1829.

Dr. Thomas Young, celebrated for his universal attainments, was born at Milverton, in Somersetshire. He was the eldest of ten children of Thomas and Sarah Young; his mother was a niece of Dr. Richard Brocklesby, a physician of considerable eminence in London. Both of his parents were members of the Society of Friends, and to the tenets of that sect, which recognizes the immediate influence of a Supreme Intelligence as a guide in the ordinary conduct of life, Dr. Young was accustomed in after years to attribute, in no slight degree, the formation of those determined habits of perseverance which gave him the power of effecting any object upon which he was engaged, and by which he was enabled to work out his own education almost from infancy, and with little comparative assistance from others. At the age of two years Young could read with considerable fluency, and before he was four years old had read the Bible through twice, and also Watts' hymns. He was likewise from his earliest years in the habit of committing to memory pieces of poetry, in proof of which there exists a memorandum, written by Young's grandfather, on the margin of a copy of Goldsmith's 'Deserted Village,' to the effect that his grandson Thomas had repeated to him the whole poem, with the exception of a word or two, before he was five years old. In 1780 he was placed at a boarding-school at Stapleton, near Bristol, and here the deficiency of the instructor appears to have advanced the studies of the pupil, as Young now became his own teacher, and used to study by himself the last pages of the book taught almost before he had reached the middle under the eye of the master.

In the year 1782 he became an inmate of the school kept by Mr. Thompson, at Crompton, in Dorsetshire, remaining there nearly four years, during which period he rapidly acquired knowledge upon various subjects. Having commenced the study of botany, he was led to attempt the construction of a microscope, with the assistance of an usher in the school of the name of Benjamin Martin, in order to examine the plants he was in the habit of gathering. In his endeavours to make the microscope Young found it necessary to procure a lathe, and for a time everything gave way to a passion for turning. This was, however, at length succeeded by a desire to become acquainted with the nature of fluxions, and after reading through and mastering a treatise upon this subject, he turned his attention to the study of Hebrew and other Oriental languages. Ultimately at the age of fourteen Thomas Young was more or less versed in Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Hebrew, Persic, and Arabic, and in forming the characters of these languages had already acquired a considerable portion of that beauty and accuracy of penmanship which was afterwards so remarkable in his copies of Greek compositions, as well as those subjects connected with the literature of ancient Egypt. A story is related of him, that when requested a few years later, by a friend of Dr. Brocklesby, who presumed somewhat upon Young's youthful appearance, to exhibit a specimen of his penmanship, he replied by writing a sentence in his best style in fourteen different languages.

In 1787 Young was engaged, in conjunction with Mr. Hodgkin, as private tutor to Hudson Gurney, grandson of Mr. David Barclay, of Youngsbury, near Ware, in Hertfordshire, and he remained thus occupied during the space of five years, extending his knowledge as far as possible. The number of books he read through at that time was comparatively small, but whatever book he began to read, he read completely and deliberately through, and it was perhaps this determination always to master what he might happen to be engaged on before attempting anything else, which enabled Dr. Young to attain so great knowledge on such various subjects. He himself had little faith in any peculiar aptitude being implanted by nature for any given pursuits. His favourite maxim was, that whatever one man had done another might do, and that the original difference between human intellects was much less than it was supposed to be; in this respect he resembled his great predecessor Newton, and his cotemporary Dalton, both of whom had unbounded confidence in the powers of patient thought.

In the autumn of 1792 Thomas Young removed to London, in order to study medicine, which profession he had determined to adopt, being greatly influenced in his choice by the wishes of his uncle Dr. Brocklesby. This gentleman had kindly undertaken the charge of his education, and Young was by him introduced to the members of the most distinguished literary circles in the metropolis, including Burke, Drs. Lawrence and Vincent, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir George Baker, and others. In the autumn of 1793 he became a pupil at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and in October 1794 proceeded to Edinburgh, still further to prosecute his medical studies. While residing at Edinburgh Dr. Young mixed largely in society, began the study of music, took lessons on the flute, and also private lessons in dancing, and frequently attended performances at the theatre. From this period he gave up the external characteristics of the Quakers, and ultimately ceased to belong to their body, although he practised to the end of his life the general simplicity of their moral conduct.

During the year 1795 he commenced a tour on the Continent, staying at the University of Göttingen during nine months, in order to prosecute his studies and take a doctor's degree. In February, 1797, he came back to England, and was almost immediately after his return admitted a Fellow-Commoner of Emmanuel College, Cambridge; the Master of the College, Dr. Farmer, saying as he introduced Young to the fellows, "I have brought you a pupil qualified to read lectures to his tutors."

In December 1797 Young's uncle, Dr. Brocklesby, died, bequeathing to his nephew the sum of 10,000_l._, besides his house, furniture, and a choice collection of pictures. Dr. Young was now entirely at liberty to form his own scheme of life, and he determined to commence practice as a physician, for which purpose, after having completed his terms of residence at Cambridge, he took a house in Welbeck Street (No. 48), which he continued to occupy for five-and-twenty years. His practice as a physician, although respectable, was never large. He wanted that confidence or assurance which is so necessary to the successful exercise of the profession. He was perhaps too deeply informed, and therefore too sensible of the difficulty of arriving at true knowledge in the science of medicine ever to form a hasty judgment; while his great love of, and adherence to truth, made him often hesitate where others would have felt no difficulty in expressing an opinion. It was perhaps a happy circumstance for the fame of Dr. Young that this should be the case, as he was thereby enabled to devote a considerable portion of his time to those literary and scientific studies in which so few could compete with him. In 1799 he published his memoir entitled 'Outlines and Experiments respecting Sound and Light,' which was read before the Royal Society and printed in their 'Transactions.' Other papers, 'On the Theory of Light and Colours,' followed, which the council of the Royal Society selected for the Bakerian lectures. In the year 1801 Dr. Young accepted the office of Professor of Natural Philosophy at the Royal Institution, which had been established the year previously. The conducting of the journal of the Institution was also entrusted to his care, in conjunction with his colleague Sir Humphry Davy, at that time Professor of Chemistry. Dr. Young remained at the Royal Institution two years, during which period he gave a course of lectures on 'Natural and Experimental Philosophy,' a syllabus of which he published in 1802, announcing for the first time his great discovery of the general law of the interference of the undulations of light. His lectures were not, however, popular; they embodied too much knowledge to be intelligible to any considerable portion of his hearers; and the matter was so abundant and the style so condensed, that students tolerably versed in science might have found it extremely difficult to follow him in his masterly discussions.

Dr. Young had been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society as early as the year 1794, when he had just completed his twenty-first year; he was now appointed (1802) Foreign Secretary to the same Society, an office which he held during the remainder of his life, and for which he was well qualified by his knowledge of the principal languages of Europe.

In 1804 he married Eliza, the daughter of James Primrose Maxwell, of Cavendish Square, and this union is said to have been attended with uninterrupted happiness; his wife who survived him left no children.

In 1807 appeared his most elaborate and valuable work, 'A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts,' being the embodiment of the sixty lectures delivered while at the Royal Institution, together with the labour of three more years occupied in further arranging and improving them. This work comprises a complete system of natural and mechanical philosophy, drawn from original sources, and is distinguished not only by the extent of its learning and the accuracy of its statements, but by the beauty and originality of the theoretical principles. It also contains a disquisition upon the doctrine of interference in the undulatory theory of light mentioned before, the general law of which he thus enunciates: "When two undulations from different origins coincide, either perfectly or very nearly in direction, their joint effect is a combination of the motions belonging to each."[49] Sir John Herschel, speaking of this discovery, says that it alone "would have sufficed to have placed its author in the highest rank of scientific immortality, even were his other almost innumerable claims to such a distinction disregarded." Amongst other laborious and difficult matters of investigation, Dr. Young made the first and most important steps in reading the Egyptian Hieroglyphics, in which he preceded Champollion; and he afterwards, in 1823, published a work on this subject, under the title of 'An Account of some recent Discoveries in Hieroglyphical Literature and Egyptian Antiquities; including the author's original Alphabet as extended by Mr. Champollion; with a Translation of five unpublished Greek and Egyptian Manuscripts.' In the year 1808 Dr. Young was admitted a fellow of the College of Physicians, and in 1810 was elected physician to St. George's Hospital, a situation which he retained for the remainder of his life. In 1813 he published 'An Introduction to Medical Literature, including a system of practical Nosology intended as a guide to Students and as an Assistant to Practitioners.' In 1816 Dr. Young was appointed Secretary to the Commission empowered to ascertain the length of the second's pendulum, and thereby establish an uniform system of weights and measures. Two years subsequent to this he became secretary to the Board of Longitude, and on the dissolution of that body, became sole conductor of the 'Nautical Almanac.' Dr. Young at various times contributed eighteen articles to the 'Quarterly Review,' of which nine were on scientific subjects--the rest on medicine, languages, and criticism. Between 1816 and 1823 he wrote sixty-three articles for the 'Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica,' Sixth Edition, of which forty-six were biographical. In the year 1821 he made a short tour in Italy with his wife, and, in August 1827, was elected one of the eight Foreign associates of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, in the place of Volta, who died in 1826; the other competitors for this honour being the astronomers Bessel and Olbers, Brown the botanist, Blumenback, Leopold, Von Buch, Dalton, and Plana the mathematician.

Dr. Young's course of life, considered apart from the variety of his occupations, was remarkably uniform. He resided in London from November to June, and at Worthing from July to the end of October, continuing this regular change of residence for fourteen successive years. In the year 1826 he removed from his house in Welbeck Street, where he had resided for a quarter of a century, to another in Park Square, which had been built under his own directions, and fitted up with great elegance and taste. He continued to live here for the remainder of his life. During the month of February, 1829, he began to suffer from what he considered repeated attacks of asthma. His health gradually got worse, but though thus under the pressure of severe illness, nothing could be more striking than the entire calmness and composure of his mind, or could surpass the kindness of his affections to all around him. In the very last stage of his complaint, in an interview with Mr. Gurney, his perfect self-possession was displayed in the most remarkable manner. After some information concerning his affairs, and some instructions concerning the hieroglyphical papers in his hands, he said, that perfectly aware of his situation, he had taken the sacrament of the Church on the day preceding; that whether he should ever partially recover, or whether he were rapidly taken off, he could patiently and contentedly await the issue. His illness continued, with some slight variations, until the morning of the 10th of May, when he expired without a struggle, having hardly completed his fifty-sixth year. The disease proved to be an ossification of the aörta, the large arterial trunk proceeding from the left ventricle of the heart. It must have been in progress for many years, and every appearance indicated an advance of age, not brought on probably by the natural course of time, nor even by constitutional formation, but by unwearied and incessant labour of mind from the earliest days of infancy. His remains were deposited in the vault of his wife's family, in the church of Farnborough, in Kent.--_Life of Thomas Young, M.D., &c., by Dr. George Peacock, Dean of Ely._ London, 1855.--_Memoir by Dr. D. Irving_, _Encyclopædia Britannica_, Eighth Edition.--_English Cyclopædia._ London, 1858.

APPENDIX.

JOSEPH BLACK, M.D.

PROFESSOR OF THE UNIVERSITIES OF EDINBURGH AND GLASGOW.

Born 1728.[50] Died November 26, 1799.

Dr. Joseph Black was born at Bourdeaux, where his father, a native of Belfast but of Scotch descent, was settled as a wine merchant; and being a man of engaging disposition and extensive information was much esteemed by his friends, among whom he reckoned Montesquieu, at that time one of the presidents of the court of justice in the province where Mr. Black resided. At the age of twelve Joseph Black was sent to a school at Belfast, where he remained for some years. In 1746 he was removed to the College at Glasgow and ever afterwards lived in Scotland, which was, properly speaking, his native country. While at the College of Glasgow he studied under the celebrated Dr. Cullen, then professor of anatomy and lecturer on chemistry, and in the year 1751 removed to Edinburgh to complete the course of his medical studies. In the following year Black made his first great discovery of the cause of the causticity of lime, a property till then supposed to be due to the absorption by the lime of some igneous agency. He placed this question on a scientific basis by ascertaining the chemical difference between quick-lime and other forms of the carbonate, and first announced his discovery in a Latin Thesis upon the occasion of his taking his degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1754. It was not, however, given in its fullest details until the year afterwards, when he published his celebrated work entitled, 'Experiments on Magnesia, Quick-lime, and other alkaline substances;' a work which Lord Brougham describes as being incontestably the most beautiful example of strict inductive investigation since the 'Optics' of Sir Isaac Newton. In 1754, as has been mentioned, Black took his medical degree at Edinburgh; in 1756 he was appointed to succeed Dr. Cullen as professor of anatomy and lecturer on chemistry in the University of Glasgow. Soon after, however, he exchanged this for the professorship of medicine at the same university, as being more congenial to his tastes. Dr. Black continued at the University of Glasgow for the next ten years, and it was during this period, between the years 1759 and 1763, that he brought to maturity his speculations concerning _heat_, which had occupied his attention from the very first commencement of his philosophical investigations. His two great discoveries were the doctrines of 'Latent Heat,' and 'Specific Heat.' The theory of 'Latent' Heat, which mainly urged Watt to the adoption of improved arrangements in the steam-engine, may be briefly described as the absorption of heat by bodies passing from the solid to the fluid state, and from the fluid to the aëriform, the heat having no effect on surrounding bodies (being, therefore, insensible to the hand or thermometer), and only by its absorption maintaining the body in the state which it has assumed, and which it retains until the absorbed heat is given out and has become again sensible, when the state of the body is changed back again from fluid to solid, from aëriform to fluid.

The doctrine of 'Specific Heat,' or as it was called by Dr. Black the _capacity_ of bodies for heat, is summed up in the facts, that different bodies contain different quantities of heat in the same bulk or weight; and different quantities of heat are required to raise different bodies to the same sensible temperature. Thus it was found that a pound of gold being heated to 150° and added to a pound of water at 50° the temperature of both became not 100°, the mean between the two but 55°, the gold losing 95° and the water gaining 5°, because the capacity of water for heat is 19 times that of gold. So twice as much heat is required to raise water to any given point of sensible heat as to raise mercury, the volumes of the two fluids compared being equal. The true doctrine of combustion, calcination of metals, and respiration of animals, which Lavoisier deduced from the experiments of Priestly and Scheele upon oxygen gas, and of Cavendish on hydrogen gas, was founded mainly upon the doctrines of latent and specific heat; and it was thus the singular felicity of Black to have furnished both the pillars upon which modern chemistry reposes.

In 1766 Black succeeded Dr. Cullen in the professorship of chemistry at the University of Edinburgh, and in the new scene on which he entered his talents became more conspicuously and more extensively useful. Dr. Robison thus characterises him as a lecturer--"He became one of the principal ornaments of the university, his lectures were attended by an audience which continued increasing from year to year; his personal appearance and manners were those of a gentleman, and peculiarly pleasing. His voice in lecturing was low but fine, and his articulation so distinct that he was perfectly well heard by an audience consisting of several hundreds. His discourse was so plain and perspicuous, his illustration by experiment so apposite, that his sentiments on any subject never could be mistaken even by the most illiterate." Dr. Black continued to lecture at the University of Edinburgh for thirty years; he then retired and died three years afterwards, in 1799. His health, never robust, was precarious at all times from a weakness in the bronchia and chest, but he prolonged life by a system of strictest abstinence, frequently subsisting for days together on watergruel and diluted milk. He was never married. He lived in a select circle of friends, the most illustrious men of the times in science and in letters; Watt, Hutton, Hume, Robertson, Smith; and afterwards with the succeeding generation of Scottish worthies, Robison, Playfair, and Stewart. He was extremely averse to publication, contemning the impatience with which so many men of science hurry to the press, often while their speculations are crude and their inquiries not finished. He never published any work himself with the exception of his 'Experiments on Magnesia, &c.,' and two papers, one in the 'London Philosophical Transactions' for 1775 on the Freezing of boiled Water; the other in the second vol. of the 'Edinburgh Transactions,' on the Iceland Hot Springs.

Dr. Black expired in the seventy-first year of his age, without any convulsion, shock, or stupor to announce or retard the approach of death. Being at table with his usual fare, some bread, a few prunes, and a measured quantity of milk diluted with water, and having the cup in his hand when the last stroke of the pulse was given, he set it down on his knees, which were joined together, and kept it steady with his hand in the manner of a person perfectly at his ease; and in this attitude he expired without a drop being spilt or a feature in his countenance changed. His servant coming in saw him in this posture and left the room, supposing him asleep. On returning soon after, he saw him sitting as before and found that he had expired.--_Brougham's Lives of Philosophers._ London and Glasgow, 1855.--_Encyclopædia Britannica_, Eighth Edition.

HENRY CORT.

Born 1740. Died 1800.

The sad history of this great inventor, who has been well surnamed "The Father of the iron trade," is comparatively soon told. Although his discoveries in the manufacture of iron were so important as to have been one of the chief causes in the establishment of our modern engineering, little is known of the life of the unfortunate inventor. He was born in 1740 at Lancaster, where his father carried on the trade of a builder and brickmaker. In 1765, at the age of twenty-five, he was engaged in the carrying on of the business of a navy agent in Surrey Street, Strand, in which he is said to have realized considerable profits. While conducting this business Cort became aware of the inferiority of British iron in comparison with that of foreign countries, and entered on a series of experiments with the object of improving its manufacture. In 1775 he relinquished his business as a navy agent and took a lease of some premises at Fonltey, near Fareham, where he erected a forge and an iron-mill. He afterwards took into partnership Samuel Jellicoe, son of Adam Jellicoe, then deputy-paymaster of seamen's wages, a connection which ultimately proved the cause of all Cort's subsequent misfortunes. Ford in 1747, Dr. Roebuck in 1762, the brothers Cranege in 1766, and Peter Onions, of Merthyr Tydvil, in 1783, had all introduced valuable additions to the then known processes of iron manufacture. In 1783-4 Cort took out his two patents which, while combining the inventions of his predecessors, specified so many valuable improvements of an original character, that they established a new era in the history of iron manufacture, and raised it to the highest state of prosperity. Mr. Truran,[51] in speaking of Cort, remarks "The mode of piling iron to form large pieces, as described in his inventions, is the one at use in the present day."--"The method of puddling iron now in use is the same as that patented by Henry Cort. There has been no essential departure from his process. Iron bottoms have been substituted for sand and by building the furnace somewhat larger, a second charge of cast-iron is introduced and partially heated during the finishing operations in the first, as conducted at the present day. All that has been done in the last seventy-three years has been in the way of adding to and perfecting Cort's furnaces, as experience has from time to time suggested." Cort's method of passing the piled wedged-shaped bars of iron through grooved rollers has been spoken of by another competent authority as of "high philosophical interest, being scarcely less than the discovery of a new mechanical power in reversing the action of the wedge, by the application of force to four surfaces so as to elongate the mass instead of applying force to a mass to divide the four surfaces." The principal iron masters soon heard of the success of Cort's new inventions, and visited his foundry for the purpose of examining his process, and of employing it at their own works if satisfied with the result. Among the first to try it were Richard Crawshaw of Cyfartha, Samuel Homfray of Penydarran (both in South Wales), and William Reynolds of Coalbrookdale. The two first-named at once entered into a contract to work under Cort's patents at 10_s._ a ton royalty; and the quality of the iron manufactured by the new process was found to be so superior to other kinds, that the Admiralty directed it, in 1787, to be used for the anchors and other iron-work in the ships of the Royal Navy. The merits of the invention were now generally conceded, and numerous contracts for licenses were entered into with Cort and his partner, by the manufacturers of bar-iron throughout the country, and licenses were taken at royalties estimated to yield 27,500_l._ to the owners of the patent. Cort himself made arrangements for carrying on the manufacture on a large scale, and with that object entered upon the possession of a wharf at Gosport belonging to Adam Jellicoe, his partner's father, where he succeeded in obtaining considerable government orders for iron made under his patents. This period, apparently the crowning point of Cort's fortunes, was but the commencement of his ruin. In August, 1789, Adam Jellicoe died, and defalcations were found in his public accounts to the extent of 39,676_l._ His papers and books were at once seized by Government, and on examination it was found that a sum of 54,853_l._ was owing to Jellicoe by the Cort partnership for moneys advanced by him at different times to enable Cort to pursue his experiments, which were necessarily of a very expensive character. Among the sums advanced by Jellicoe to Cort was found one of 27,500_l._ entrusted to Jellicoe for the payment of seamen and officers' wages. As Jellicoe had the reputation of being a rich man, Cort had not the slightest suspicion of the source from which the advances made to the firm were derived, nor has any connivance whatever on the part of Cort been suggested. The Government, however, bound to act with promptitude in such a case, at once adopted extraordinary measures to recover their money. The assignments of Cort's patents, which had been made to Jellicoe in consideration of his advances, were taken possession of, but, strange to say, Samuel Jellicoe, the son of the defaulter, was put in possession of the properties at Fonltey and Gosport and continued to enjoy them, to Cort's exclusion for a period of fourteen years. Notwithstanding this, the patent rights seem never to have been levied by the assignees, and the result was that the whole benefit of Cort's inventions was made over to the ironmasters and to the public, although there seems little reason to doubt, that had they been duly levied, the whole of the debt due to the government would have been paid in the course of a few years. As for Cort himself, on the death of Jellicoe he left his iron works a ruined man. He subsequently made many appeals to Government for the restoration of his patents, and offered to find security for payment of the debt due by his firm to the Crown, but in vain. In 1794 an appeal was made to Mr. Pitt by a number of influential members of parliament, on behalf of the inventor and his destitute family of twelve children, when a pension of 200_l._ was granted to him, which he enjoyed until the year 1800, when, broken in health and spirit, he died at the age of sixty. He was buried in Hampstead Church, where a stone marks the date of his death and is still to be seen; a few years ago it was illegible, but it has been restored by his surviving son Richard Cort.