Emilie de Bréteuil, Antonie C. Asher, Elizabeth von Matt, Wilhelmine Witte and Agnes Mary Clerke likewise distinguished themselves in astronomy. The last named lady published in 1885 a "History of Astronomy" and in 1890 "The System of the Stars." These writings, conspicuous for a careful sifting and due assimilation of facts, with a happy diction that is at the same time both popular and scientific, place the author in the foremost rank of writers on astronomy. —
As an eminent mathematician, linguist and philosopher Maria Gaetana Agnesi is known to every student of science. Born 1718 at Milan, she gave early indication of extraordinary ability and devoted herself to the abstract sciences. In mathematics she attained such consummate skill, that, when her father, professor of mathematics at Bologna, died, the Pope allowed her to succeed him. In this capacity she wrote her famous work: "Instituzions Analitiche ad Uso Gioventu Italiana," which was published at Milan in 1748. Its first volume treats of the analysis of finite quantities, and the second of the analysis of infinitesimals. The able mathematician John Colson, professor at the University of Cambridge, considered this work so excellent, that he studied Italian in order to translate it into English. Under the title "Analytical Institutions" this translation was published in 1801, to do honor to Maria Agnesi, and also to prove that women have minds capable of comprehending the most abstruse studies.
Another female mathematician, Sophie Germain, born in 1776 in Paris, won the grand prize, offered by the Institute of France for the best memoir giving the mathematical theory of elastic surfaces and comparing it with experience. This question had come up in 1808. Great mathematicians were not wanting in Paris at that time—Lagrange, Laplace, Poisson, Fourier, and others, but none of them were inclined to tackle the question. Lagrange, in fact, had said that it could not be solved by any of the then known mathematical methods. The offer was twice renewed by the Institute, and in 1816 the prize was conferred upon Sophie Germain, who in 1808 as well as in 1810 had made two unsuccessful attempts to solve the difficult question. The same woman distinguished herself by a number of other valuable papers and philosophical writings.
In more recent years Sonja Kowalewska, a Russian, who had studied mathematics at the universities of Berlin and Goettingen, became famous as the winner of the Prix Bordin, offered by the Academy of Paris. Later on, as a professor of mathematics in Stockholm, she wrote a number of excellent professional works, but died there in her fortieth year.
Among the British scientific writers of the 19th Century the most famous was Mary Somerville, whom Laplace called
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