Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/77

Rh ho arrived in England, and va.s the next year made one of the lords of the Admiralty, and chosen an elder brother of the Trinity House. In February 1755 he was appointed vice-admiral, and in April he intercepted the French squadron bound to North America, and took the &quot;Alcide&quot; and &quot; Lys &quot; of sixty-four guns each. Hocquart became his prisoner for the third time, and Boscawen returned to Spithead with his prizes and 1500 prisoners. For this exploit he received the thanks of Parliament. In 1758 he was appointed admiral of the blue and commander-in -chief of the expedition to Cape Breton, when, in conjunction with General Amherst, he took the fortress of Louisbourg, and the island of Cape Breton, services for which he again received the thanks of the House of Commons. In 1759, being appointed to command in the Mediterranean, he pursued the French fleet, and after a sharp engagement in Lagos Bay, took three large ships and burnt two, return ing to Spithead with his prizes and 2000 prisoners. In December 1760 he was appointed general of the marines, with a salary of 3000 per annum, and was also sworn a member of the privy council. He died at his seat near Guildford, January 10, 1761, in the 50th year of his age.  BOSCOVICH,, a distinguished Italian mathematician and natural philosopher, and one of the earliest of foreign savants to adopt the theory of Newton, was born at Ragusa in Dalmatia, May 18, 1711, according to the usual account, but ten years earlier according to Lalande (ItHoge, 1792). In his fifteenth year, after passing through the usual elementary studies, he entered the society of Jesus. On completing his noviciate, which was spent at Rome, he studied mathematics and physics at the Collegium Romanum ; and so brilliant was his progress in these sciences that in 1740 he obtained the appoint ment of professor of mathematics in the college. For this post he was especially fitted by his large acquaintance with modern advances in science and by his skill in a classical severity of demonstration, acquired by a thorough study of the works of the Greek geometricians. Several years before this appointment he had made himself a name by an elegant solution of the problem to find the sun s equator and determine the period of his rotation by observation of the spots on his surface. Notwithstanding the arduous duties of his professorship he found time for investigation in all the fields of physical science ; and he published a very large number of dissertations, some of them of considerable length, on a wide variety of subjects. Among these subjects were the transit of Mercury, the Aurora Borealis, the figure of the earth, the observation of the fixed stars, the inequalities in terrestrial gravitation, the application of mathematics to the theory of the telescope, the limits of certainty in astronomical observations, the solid of greatest attraction, the cycloid, the logistic curve lines, the theory of cornets, the tides, the law of continuity, the double refraction micrometer, various problems of spherical trigonometry, &c. In 1742 he was consulted, with other men of science, by the pope, Benedict XIV., as to the best means of securing the stability of the dome of St Peter s, in which a crack had been discovered. His suggestion was adopted. Shortly after he engaged to take part in the Portuguese expedition for the survey of Brazil and the measurement of a degree of the meridian ; but he yielded to the urgent request of the pope that he would remain in Italy and undertake a similar task there. Ac cordingly, in conjunction with Christopher Maire, an English Jesuit, he measured an arc of two degrees between Rome and Rimini. The operations were begun towards the close of 1750, and were completed in about two years. An account of them was published in 1755, entitled De Litieraria expeditione per pontificam. ditionem ad dime- tiendos duos meridiam rjradus a P. P. Maire ct Boscovich. The value of this work was increased by a carefully prepared map of the States of the Church. A French translation appeared in 1770. A dispute having arisen between the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the republic of Lucca with respect to the drainage of a lake, Boscovich was, sent, in 1757, as agent of Lucca to Vienna, and succeeded in briaging about a satisfactory arrangement of the matter. In the following year he published at Vienna his famous work on the molecular theory of matter, entitled Theoria pldlosopldoe naturalis redact a ad unicam legem virium in iiatura existentiiim. Another occasion for the exercise of his diplomatic ability soon after presented itself. A suspi cion having arisen on the part of the British Government that ships of war had been fitted out in the port of Ragusa for the service of France, and that the neutrality of Ragusa had thus been violated, Boscovich was selected to undertake an embassy to London (1760), to vindicate the character of his native place and satisfy the Government. This mission he discharged successfully, with credit to himself and satis faction to his countrymen. During his stay in England he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, which received him with marks of the highest respect. He soon after paid this society the compliment of dedicating to it his Latin poem, entitled, De Solis et Lunce Defectibus. This prolix composition, one of a class which at that time was much in vogue metrical epitomes of the facts of science contains in about five thousand lines, illustrated by voluminous notes, a compendium of astronomy. It was for the most part written on horseback, during the author s rides in the country while engaged in his meridian measurements. The book is characterized by Delambre as &quot; uninstructive to an astronomer and unintelligible to any one else.&quot; On leaving England Boscovich travelled in Turkey, but ill health compelled him soon to return to Italy. In 1764 he was called to the chair of mathematics at the University of Pavia, and this post he held, together with the directorship of the observatory of Brera, for six years. He was invited by the Royal Society of London to under take an expedition to California to observe the transit of Venus in 1769 ; but this was prevented by the recent decree of the Spanish Government for the expulsion of the Jesuits from its dominions. The vanity, egotism, and petulance of Boscovich provoked his rivals and made him many enemies, so that in hope of peace he was driven to frequent change of residence. About 1770 he removed to Milan, where he continued to teach and to hold the directorship of the observatory of Brera ; but being de prived of his post by the intrigues of his associates he was about to retire to his native place, when the news reached him (1773) of the suppression of his order in Italy. Uncer tainty as to his future lot led him to accept an invitation from the king of France to Paris, where he was naturalized and was appointed director of optics for the marine, an office instituted for him, with a pension of 8000 livres. He remained there ten years, but his position became irksome, and at length intolerable. He continued however to devote himself diligently to the pursuits of science, and published many remarkable memoirs. Among them were an elegant solution of the problem to determine the orbit of a comet from three observations, and memoirs on the micrometer and achromatic telescopes. In 1 783 he returned to Italy, and spent two years at Bassano, where he occupied himself with the publication of his Opera pertincntia ad opticam et astronomiam, &c., which appeared in 1785 in five volumes quarto. After a visit of some months to the con vent of Vallombrosa, he went to Milan and resumed his literary labours. But his health was failing, his reputation was on the wane, his works did not sell, and he gradually sank a prey to illness and disappointment. He fell into 