Cornish Characters and Strange Events. Baring-Gould Sabine

fact was there, and that his hitherto untried mathematical path was the one which must reach it; that there were no anomalies in the universe, but that, even here, and now, they could be explained and included in a higher law. The delight of working it out was far more than any notoriety could give, for his love of pure truth is evidently intense, an inward necessity, unaffected by all the penny trumpets of the world. Well, at length he fixed his point in space, and sent his mathematical evidence to Airy, the Astronomer Royal, who locked the papers up in his desk, partly from carelessness, partly from incredulity, for it seemed to him impossible that a man whose name was unknown to him should strike out a new path in mathematical science with any success. Moreover, his theory was, that if there were a planet, it would not be discovered for one hundred and sixty years; that is, until two revolutions of Uranus had been accomplished. Then came Leverrier's equally original, though many months younger, demonstration; Gull's immediate verification of it by observation; and then the other astronomers were all astir. Professor Adams speaks of those about whom the English scientific world is so indignant in a spirit of Christian philosophy, exactly in keeping with the mind of a man who has discovered a planet. He speaks with warmest admiration of Leverrier, specially of his exhaustive method of making out the orbits of the comets, imagining and disproving all tracks but the right one – a work of infinite labour. If the observer could make out distinctly but a very small part of a comet's orbit, the mathematician would be able to prove what its course had been through all time. They enjoyed being a good deal together at the British Association Meeting at Oxford, though it was unfortunate for the intercourse of the fellow-workers that one could not speak French nor the other English. He had met with very little mathematical sympathy, except from Challis, of the Cambridge Observatory; but when his result was announced there was noise enough and to spare. He was always fond of star-gazing and speculation, and is already on the watch for another planet. Burnard told us that when Professor Adams came from Cambridge to visit his relatives in Cornwall he was employed to sell sheep for his father at a fair. He is a most good son and neighbour, and watchful in the performance of small acts of thoughtful kindness."

      "1863, July 2nd. – Have just returned from a visit to Professor Adams at Cambridge. He is so delightful in the intervals of business, enjoying all things, large and small, with a boyish zest. He showed and explained the calculating machine (French, not Babbage's), which saves him much in time and brain, as it can multiply or divide ten figures accurately. We came upon an admirable portrait of him at S. John's College, before he accepted a Pembroke Fellowship and migrated thither."

      The first mention of the name of Adams as the discoverer of Neptune was by Sir John Herschel, in the Athenæum, on October 3rd, 1845. And a letter from Professor Challis to that journal on 17th October described in detail the transactions between Adams, Airy, and himself. Naturally enough the French were highly incensed at the notion that an obscure Englishman had forestalled Leverrier in the discovery, and Airy himself was annoyed at his own negligence in not looking into the memoir by Adams, and took up the matter with some personal feeling. It was certainly startling to realize that the Astronomer Royal had had in his possession data that would have enabled the planet to be discovered nearly a year before Leverrier had, by a different course of argument and calculation, arrived at the conclusion that there existed a planet which was the disturbing element in the orbit of Uranus. As to Adams himself, he had not a particle of conceit and pride in him; he did not care to have his name proclaimed as the discoverer. Forty years later, he said simply and characteristically that all he had wished for was that English astronomers to whom he had communicated the result of his calculations, pointing out the precise spot in the sky where a planet was to be found, would have taken the trouble to turn their telescopes upon that point and discover the planet, so that England might have had the full credit of the discovery.

      His long-suppressed investigation was not laid before the Royal Astronomical Society till November 13th, 1846.

      The publication, of course, stirred up much controversy, and the scientific world was divided into Adamite and anti-Adamite factions.

      Adams refused knighthood in 1847, and declined the office of Astronomer Royal on Airy's retirement in 1881.

      John Couch had a brother, William Grylls, also a man of some eminence in the scientific world. He was born at Lidcott 12th February, 1836, and became Professor of Natural Philosophy and of Astronomy in King's College, London.

      I was wont, when at Cambridge, to meet John Couch Adams at Professor Challis', and also at the house of the Rev. Harvey Goodwin, afterwards Bishop of Carlisle. Professor Adams took some notice of me, as coming from his neighbourhood, though not on the Cornish side of the Tamar. He was a small man, as simple as a child in many things. Indeed, he struck me forcibly by his great modesty and sweetness of manner. He loved a joke, and would laugh heartily over the very smallest. He loved children, and would play with them in their little games with infinite zest. Professor Glaisher, whom I also knew, wrote of him: "Adams was a man of learning as well as a man of science. He was an omnivorous reader, and his memory was exact and retentive. There were few subjects upon which he was not possessed of accurate information. Botany, geology, history, and divinity, all had their share of his care and attention."

      He was always happy to return to his humble father's farm; and after he was a noted man, on one of these occasions the old man sent him into Launceston with a drove of sheep to sell them in the market. He complied cheerfully, but how he succeeded in selling them I have not heard. This is the incident alluded to by Caroline Fox given above.

      "The honours showered upon him," wrote Dr. Donald MacAlister, "left him as they found him – modest, gentle, and sincere." He was not a man who ever asserted himself.

      He married in 1863 Eliza, daughter of Haliday Bruce, of Dublin. He died of a sudden illness on January 21st, 1892, and was buried in S. Giles' Churchyard, Cambridge.

      Portraits were taken of him by Mogford in 1851, and by Herkomer in 1888; both are in the Combination-room of St. John's College, Cambridge.

      A biographical notice of him was prefixed by Professor Glaisher to his scientific works, edited by W. G. Adams, in 1896-8.

      See also A. De Morgan's Budget of Paradoxes, 1872, and the Mechanics' Magazine, 1846.

      DANIEL GUMB

      All that is really known of this eccentric character is found in a letter of J. B. to Richard Polwhele, dated September, 1814. His correspondent says: —

      "Daniel Gumb was born in the parish of Linkinhorne, in Cornwall, about the commencement of the last century, and was bred a stone-cutter. In the early part of his life he was remarkable for his love of reading and a degree of reserve even exceeding what is observable in persons of studious habits. By close application Daniel acquired, even in his youth, a considerable stock of mathematical knowledge, and, in consequence, became celebrated throughout the adjoining parishes. Called by his occupation to hew blocks of granite on the neighbouring commons, and especially in the vicinity of that great natural curiosity called the Cheesewring, he discovered near this spot an immense block, whose upper surface was an inclined plane. This, it struck him, might be made the roof of a habitation such as he desired; sufficiently secluded from the busy haunts of men to enable him to pursue his studies without interruption, whilst it was contiguous to the scene of his daily labour. Immediately Daniel went to work, and cautiously excavating the earth underneath, to nearly the extent of the stone above, he obtained a habitation which he thought sufficiently commodious. The sides he lined with stone, cemented with lime, whilst a chimney was made by perforating the earth at one side of the roof. From the elevated spot on which stood this extraordinary dwelling could be seen Dartmoor and Exmoor on the east, Hartland on the north, the sea and the port of Plymouth on the south, and S. Austell and Bodmin Hills on the west, with all the intermediate beautiful scenery. The top of the rock which roofed his house served Daniel for an observatory, where at every favourable opportunity he watched the motions of the heavenly bodies, and on the surface of which, with his chisel, he carved a variety of diagrams, illustrative of the most difficult problems of Euclid, etc. These he left behind him as evidences of the patience and ingenuity with which he surmounted the obstacles that his station in life had placed in the way of his mental improvement.

      "But the choice of his house and the mode in which he pursued his studies were not his only eccentricities. His