Part 22

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 30,000l.

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 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 10,000l., 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." 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. Died November 26, 1799.