successful in his object, and the small-coal of Scotland was soon after. wards exempted from duty.

Soon after the original institution of the Royal society of Edmburgh, Dr Hutton communicated to that society the outlines of his celebrated theory of the Earth. Another paper from his pen, a theory of Rain, also appeared in the first volume of the society's Transactions. In 1792 he published Dissertations in Natural Philosophy,' in which he approaches to Boscovick's views on various points of natural science. In a succeeding publication, entitled 'An Investigation of the Principles of Knowledge, he boldly attempted to revive the Berkleian hypothesis. In 1794 he published Dissertations on the Philosophy of Light, Heat, and Fire; and, in 1795, his Theory of the Earth,' being a republication, with large additions, of his essays in the Edinburgh Transactions.

·

Dr Hutton's health had begun to decline in 1792. He had intervals of convalescence, but died on the 26th of March, 1797. He was an amiable man in private life; of an active slender person, with sharp features, lofty forehead, and a quick eye.

The Huttonian theory of the formation of the earth bears considerable resemblance to that first propounded by Professor Pallas of Russia in 1791, but is more consistent and better supported by argument and evidence. It supposes all the materials of our globe to have at one time existed in an unmixed state, and to have acquired their present arrangement and form by the action of two powerful agents, fire and water. By the continued action of water on former continents, of which they are the ruins, the present materials of the surface of our globe have been thrown loosely together; while their consolidation has been effected by the action of a powerful subterranean fire. The expansive power of this active internal fire has since elevated the strata from the bosom of the sea, and given them the various shapes and inclinations they now exhibit. Those substances which are unstratified owe their origin to perfect fusion; whereas stratified bodies have been only softened by heat, and in this state penetrated by other substances in a state of sion. The following is Mr Playfair's eloquent exposition of the Huttonian geology:

"Such, according to Dr Hutton's theory, are the changes which the daily operations of waste have produced upon the surface of the globe. These operations, inconsiderable if taken separately, become great, by conspiring all to the same end, never counteracting one another, but proceeding through a period of indefinite extent, continually in the same direction. Thus every thing descends, nothing returns upwards; the hard and solid bodies every where dissolve, and the loose and soft no where consolidate. The powers which tend to preserve, and those which tend to change the condition of the earth's surface, are never in equilibrio the latter are in all cases the most powerful, and in respect of the former, are like living in comparison of dead forces. Hence the law of decay is one which suffers no exception: the elements of all bodies were once loose and unconnected, and to the same state nature has appointed that they should all return.

"It affords no presumption against the reality of this progress, that, in respect of man, it is too slow to be immediately perceived: the utmost portion of it, to which our experience can extend, is evanescent, in comparison with the whole, and must be regarded as the momentary

increment of a vast progression, circumscribed by no other limits than the duration of the world. Time performs the office of integrating the infinitesimal parts of which this progression is made up; it collects them into one sum, and produces from them an amount greater than any that can be assigned.

"While on the surface of the earth so much is every where going to decay, no new production of mineral substances is found in any region accessible to man. The instances of what are called petrifactions, or the formation of stony substances by means of water, which we sometimes observe, whether they be ferruginous concretions, or calcareous, or, as happens in some rare cases, siliceous stalactites, are too few in number, and too inconsiderable in extent, to be deemed material exceptions to this general rule. The bodies thus generated, also, are no sooner formed, than they become subject to waste and dissolution, like all the other hard substances in nature; so that they but retard for a while the progress by which they are all resolved into dust, and sooner or later committed to the bosom of the deep.

"We are not, however, to imagine, that there is nowhere any means of repairing this waste; for, on comparing the conclusion at which we are now arrived, viz. that the present continents are all going to decay, and their materials descending into the ocean, with the proposition first laid down, that these same continents are composed of materials which must have been collected from the decay of former rocks, it is impossible not to recognise two corresponding steps of the same progress; of a progress, by which mineral substances are subjected to the same series of changes, and alternately wasted away and renovated. In the same manner, as the present mineral substances derive their origin from substances similar to themselves; so, from the land now going to decay, the sand and gravel forming on the sea-shore, or in the beds of rivers; from the shells and corals which in such enormous quantities are every day accumulated in the bosom of the sea; from the drift-wood, and the multitude of vegetable and animal remains continually deposited in the ocean; from all these we cannot doubt that strata are now forming in those regions to which nature seems to have confined the powers of mineral production; from which, after being consolidated, they are again destined to emerge, and to exhibit a series of changes similar to the past.

"How often these vicissitudes of decay and renovation have been repeated, it is not for us to determine; they constitute a series, of which, as the author of this theory has remarked, we neither see the beginning nor the end, a circumstance that accords well with what is known concerning other parts of the economy of the world. In the continuation of the different species of animals and vegetables that inhabit the earth, we discern neither a beginning nor an end; and in the planetary motions, where geometry has carried the eye so far both into the future and the past, we discover no mark, either of the commencement or the termination of the present order. It is unreasonable, indeed, to suppose, that such marks should any where exist.

The Author of nature

has not given laws to the universe, which, like the institutions of men, carry in themselves the elements of their own destruction. He has not permitted, in his works, any symptom of infancy or of old age, or any sign by which we may estimate either their future or their past duration.

He may put an end, as he no doubt gave a beginning, to the present system, at some determinate period; but we may safely conclude that this great catastrophe will not be brought about by any of the laws now existing, and that it is not indicated by any thing which we perceive."1

William Enfield.

BORN A. D. 1741.-DIED a. D. 1797.

We are indebted for the present notice of this amiable man to the friendly pen of his literary associate Dr Aikin.

Dr William Enfield, Unitarian minister in Norwich, was born at Sudbury, in 1741, of parents in a humble walk of life, but of very respectable character. His amiable disposition and promising talents early recommended him to the Rev. Mr Hextall, the dissenting minister of that place, who took great care of his education, and infused into his young mind that taste for elegance in composition which ever afterwards distinguished him. In his 17th year, he was sent to the academy at Daventry, then under the direction of Dr Ashworth, where he passed through the usual course of instruction preparatory to the office of the ministry; and with such success did he cultivate the talents of a preacher, and of an amiable man in society, that on leaving the academy, he was at once chosen, in 1763, minister of a respectable congregation in Liverpool. In that agreeable town he passed seven of the happiest years of his life, very generally beloved and esteemed. He married in 1767. His literary reputation was extended, during his residence in this place, by the publication of two volumes of sermons, which were well-received. About 1770, he was invited to take a share in the conduct of the academy at Warrington, and also to occupy the place of minister to the dissenting congregation there, both vacant by the death of Mr Seddon. "His acceptance of this honourable invitation,"—says Dr Aikin,—“ was a source of a variety of mixed sensations and events to him, of which anxiety and vexation composed too large a share for his happiness. No assiduity on his part was wanting in the performance of his various duties; but the diseases of the institution were radical and incurable; and perhaps his gentleness of temper was ill-adapted to contend with the difficulties, in matter of discipline, which seem entailed on all dissenting academies, and which, in that situation, fell upon him, as the domestic resident, with peculiar weight. He always, however, possessed the respect and affection of the best disposed of the students; and there was no reason to suppose that any other person, in his place, could have prevented that dissolution which the academy underwent in 1783."

During the period of his engagement there, his indefatigable industry was exerted in the composition of a number of works, mostly indeed of the class of useful compilations, but containing valuable displays of his powers of thinking and writing. The most considerable was his 'Institutes of Natural Philosophy,' a clear and well-arranged compendium of the leading principles, theoretical and experimental, of the sciences com

Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory. Edin. 1802.

prised under that head. And it may be mentioned, as an extraordinary proof of his diligence and power of comprehension, that on a vacancy in the mathematical department of the academy-which the state of the institution rendered impossible to supply by a new tutor-he prepared himself, at a short warning, to fill it up, and did fill it with credit and utility, though this abstruse branch of science had never before been a particular object of his study.

He continued at Warrington two years after the academy had broken up, taking a few private pupils. In 1785, receiving an invitation from a dissenting congregation at Norwich, he accepted it; and first fixed his residence at Thorpe, a pleasant village near the city, where he pursued his plan of taking a limited number of pupils to board in his house. He afterwards removed to Norwich itself; at length, fatigued with the long cares of education, he entirely ceased to receive boarders, and only gave private instructions to two or three select pupils. This too he at last discontinued, and devoted himself solely to the duties of his congregation, and the retired and independent occupations of literature. Besides the literary performances already mentioned, Dr Enfield completed, in 1791, the laborious task of an abridgment of 'Brucker's History of Philosophy,' which he comprised in two volumes quarto. "Perhaps," says Dr Aikin, "at the time of his decease, there was not in England a more perfect master of what is called the middle style in writing,-combining the qualities of ease, elegance, perspicuity, and correctness, entirely free from affectation and singularity, and fitted for any subject. If his cast of thought was not original, yet it was free, enlarged, and manly, of which better proof needs not be adduced than those papers, which, under the title of The Enquirer,' have so much gratified the liberal readers of the Monthly Magazine.' They display a vigour and maturity of mind which show the value of long-thinking and long-living in strengthening the understanding and giving tone to the powers of decision."

Edward Waring.

BORN A. D. 1734.-DIED A. D. 1798

THIS distinguished mathematician was the son of a wealthy farmer in the neighbourhood of Shrewsbury. He received the earlier part of his education at Shrewsbury freeschool, whence he removed to Cambridge, and was admitted of Magdalen college on the 24th of March, 1753. Here his talents for abstruse calculation soon developed themselves; and, at taking his degree, he was considered a prodigy in those sciences which make the subject of the bachelor's examination. The name of Senior wrangler, or the first of the year, was thought scarcely a sufficient distinction for one who left all his competitors so immeasurably behind.

The Lucasian professorship became vacant before Waring was of sufficient standing for the next, or master's degree, which is a necessary qualification for that office; yet it was almost generally acknowledged that the university could furnish no man so well-qualified as our young

' Dr Aikin was, at this time, editor of this periodical.

mathematician to fill the chair of Barrow, Newton, Whiston, Cotes, and Saunderson; and the defect in his honorary titles was supplied by royal mandate, through which he became master of arts in 1760, and shortly afterwards was appointed Lucasian professor.

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Mr Waring was originally intended for the medical profession, and took his degree of M. D. in 1767; he never attempted, however, to practise a profession for which he could not acknowledge any enthusiasm, and for which, indeed, he was in a great measure unqualified by a certain mauvaise honte of manner which he never could get over. He passed his life in the study of the abstract sciences, and chiefly on his own estate at Plaisley near Shrewsbury, where he died in August, 1798. Wishing to do ample justice to the talents and virtue of the professor," says an able cotemporary of his own, "we feel ourselves somewhat at a loss in speaking of the writings by which alone he will be known to posterity. He is the discoverer, according to his own account, of nearly four hundred propositions in the analytics, and the account is scarcely exaggerated; yet we have reason to believe that the greater part of these discoveries will sink into oblivion; and that posterity will be as little attentive to them as his own cotemporaries. If, according to his own confession, 'few thought it worth their while to read even half of his works,' there must be some grounds for this neglect, either from the difficulty of the subject, the unimportance of the discoveries, or a defect in the communication of them to the public. The subjects are certainly of a difficult nature, the calculations are abstruse, yet Europe contained many persons not to be deterred by the most intricate theorems. Shall we say then that the discoveries were unimportant? If this were really the case, the want of utility would be a very small disparagement among those who cultivate science with a view chiefly to entertainment and the exercise of their rational powers. We are compelled then to attribute much of this neglect to a perplexity in style, manner, and language; the reader is stopped at every instant, first to make out the writer's meaning, then to fill up the chasm in the demonstration. He must invent anew every invention; for, after the enunciation of the theorem or problem, and the mention of a few steps, little assistance is derived from the professor's powers of explanation. Indeed, an anonymous writer, certainly of very considerable abilities, has aptly compared the works of Waring to the heavy appendages of a Gothic building, which add little of either beauty or stability to the

structure.

"A great part of the discoveries relate to an assumption in Algebra, that equations may be generated by multiplying together others of inferior dimensions. The roots of these latter equations are frequently terms called negative, or impossible; and the relation of these terms to the coefficients of the principal equation is a great object of inquiry. In this art the professor was very successful, though little assistance is to be derived from his writings, in looking for the real roots. We shall not, perhaps, be deemed to depreciate his merits, if we place the series for the sum of the powers of the roots of any equation, among the most ingenious of his discoveries; yet we cannot add, that it has very usefully enlarged the bounds of science, or that the algebraist will ever tind occasion to introduce it into practice. We may say the same on many ingenious transformations of equations, on the discovery of im