A Life of Mary Somerville

メアリー・サマヴィル(1780-1872)はイギリスで最初の女性科学者であり，独学で四冊の著書『天体力学』，『自然諸科学の結合について』，『自然地理学』，『分子と顕微鏡の科学について』を発表した．天空と地上の諸現象の結合を取りあげた彼女の宇宙論ともいうべき『自然諸科学の結合について』(1834)では，科学の分化が進みながらも，いわゆる諸力の変換を始めとする諸現象間の結合の究明に注目し，諸科学は結合しつつあるとみていた時代が存在したことを映し出している．同時代に発表されたフンボルト『コスモス』成立の思想的背景を解明する上で，一つの手掛かりを提供している著書といえよう．彼女はまた19世紀前半のヨーロッパ科学の成果を集大成した科学思想家であり，地理学者でもあった．

Mary Somerville was born Mary Fairfax on the 26th December, 1780, in Jedburgh, Scotland. She was raised in Burntisland, then a small seaport town, immediately opposite to Edinburgh. Her mother taught her to read the Bible in her childhood. At ten years old she was sent to a boardingschool to learn the first principles of writing. She remained at this school for a year. When she was about thirteen her mother took an apartment in Edinburgh for the winter. At that time Edinburgh was really capital of Scotland and most of the Scotch families of distinction spent the winter there. She learned painting, dancing and the piano there. One day her friend showed her a monthly magazine “Magazine of Fashions” with coloured plates of ladies' dresses, charades and puzzles. On turning the pages she had been surprised to see strange looking lines mixed with letters, X'es and Y's. She asked her friend, “What is that?” Her friend said, “It's a kind of arithmetic. They call it algebra.” Since then she was interested in mathematics. She began to study mathematics, astronomy, Latin and Greek by herself. She never lost sight of the main object of her life, which was to prosecute her studies. In 1804 she married Samuel Grieg, Russian consul for Britain, and lived in London. After three years of married life, she returned to Burntisland as a widow with two little boys. She pursued her studies including the higher branches of mathematics and physical astronomy with increased assiduity. Her adviser was John Playfair. She attempted to read Newton's “Principia” and Laplace's “Mécanique Céleste”. In 1812 she married her cousin, Dr. William Somerville. He was too liberal to encourage her pursuit of science. In 1816 they moved to London and became acquainted with many scientists. Their friends included John Herschel, William Wollaston, Thomas Young, Edward Sabin, Charls Lyell and Michael Faraday. In 1817 they traveled in France, Switzerland and Italy. They stayed in Paris and also got acquainted with the famous scientists including Dominique Arago, Jean Biot, Pierre Laplace, Georges Cuvier, Joseph Gay-Lussac and Alexander von Humboldt. In 1827 Lord Brougham asked her to translate Laplace's “Mécanique Céleste”. “Mechanism of the heavens” appeared in 1831. When she wrote the preface of this book she saw mutual dependence and connection in many branches of science. “On the connexion of the physical sciences” appeared in 1834. Mary was already meditating writing a book on physical geography, and began to collect materials for it. But her husband's illness was so dangerous that he was ordered to a warmer climate for the winter. So in the latter half of the 1830s Mary and her family moved to Rome. In 1845 she was preparing to print her “Physical geography” when Humboldt's “Kosmos” appeared. She at once determined to put her manuscript in the fire when her husband said, “Do not be rash, consult some of our friends, Herschel for instance.” She send the manuscript to John Herschel, who advised her to publish it. Her book “Physical geography” was published in 1848. She was awarded the Patron's Victoria Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1869. In 1869 her last book “Molecular and microscopic science” was published. She died on the 29th Nov., 1872, in Naples. Mary Somerville was the first woman scientist and the first geographer in England.