Page:On the Difficulty of Correct Description of Books - De Morgan (1902).djvu/41



Augustus De Morgan was born in 1806 and died in 1871. From 1828 to 1831, and again, from 1836 to 1866, he was professor of mathematics at University College, London. He was a prolific writer on scientific subjects, especially mathematics and logic, but published comparatively few books, the overwhelming mass of his writings being printed in scientific journals, such as the Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, the Philosophical magazine, Cambridge and Dublin mathematical journal, etc. His contributions to The Athenaeum and to Notes and queries were very voluminous, so much so that when his widow was compiling a list of his writings for the Memoir which she published in 1872, she felt obliged to omit them on account of their number. For twenty-seven years, from 1831 to 1857, De Morgan contributed one article a year to the Companion to the Almanac; and of the Penny encyclopedia he wrote about one sixth.

After his death Mrs. De Morgan published Memoir of Augustus De Morgan ''With selections from his letters. London, 1872''. There are other sketches of our author in the Monthly notes of the Royal Astronomical Society for February 1872, not signed, in Encyclopedia Britannica by W. Stanley Jevons, and in the Dictionary of national biography by Leslie Stephen.

A list of such of Augustus De Morgan's writings as are of more or less interest bibliographically, follows; no attempt has been made, however, to include his contributions to The Athenaeum and to Notes and queries:

Old arguments against the motion of the earth. ''Comp. to the alm for 1836, p. 5-20''.

Notices of English mathematical and astronomical writers between the Norman conquest and the year 1600. ''Comp. to the alm. for 1837, p. 21-44''.