nicated a memoir on the subject to the Smithsonian Institute. She has been for some time engaged with her father in making the necessary astronomical observation for the measuration of an arc of the meridian between Nantucket and Portland, in the employment of Dr. Bache, for the coast survey. At the invitation of the superintendent, she also made some observations at the northern extremity of this arc. She is also engaged in the computations of the new Nantucket Almanac, authorized by the government of the United States, and under the superintendence of Lieutenant Davis. Amidst all these employments, she finds time to read many of the French and German mathematical writers, and to keep up with the literature of the day. She has been elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the only lady having that honour, and subsequently, on the nomination of Professor Agassis, a member of the American Association for the Promotion of Science.
MITFORD, MARY RUSSELL,
Was born on the 16th. of December, 1786, at Alresford, in Hampshire. Her father was of an old Northumberland family, one of the Mitfords of Mitford Castle; her mother the only daughter of the Rev. Dr. Russell, of Ash, in Hampshire, and she was their only child. When still a young girl, about the year 1806, Miss Mitford published a volume of miscellaneous poems, and two volumes of narrative poetry after the manner of Scott, "Christina the Maid of the South Seas," (founded upon the story of the mutineers of the Bounty, afterwards taken up by Lord Byron;) and "Blanche, a Spanish Story." These books sold well and obtained a fair share of popularity, and some of them were reprinted in America. However, Miss Mitford herself was not satisfied with them, and for several of the following years devoted herself to reading instead of writing; indeed it is doubtful whether she would ever have written again had not she, with her parents, been reduced from the high affluence to which they were born, to comparative poverty. Filial affection induced her to resume the pen she had so long thrown aside, and accordingly she wrote the series of papers which afterwards formed the first volume of "Our Village, Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery." about 1820. But so little was the peculiar and original excellence of her descriptions understood at first, that, after being rejected by the more important publications, they at last saw the 'light in the "Lady's Magazine." The public were not long in discovering the beauties of a style so fresh yet so finished, and in appreciating the delicate humour and the simple pathos of these tales; and the result was, that the popularity of these sketches outgrew that of the works of a loftier order from the same pen; and every nook and comer of the cluster of cottages around Three-Mile-Cross, near Reading, in Berkshire, (in one of which the authoress herself resided,) is as well known as the streets and lanes around the reader's own home. Four other volumes of sketches were afterwards added; the fifth, and last, in 1832. Extending her observation from the country village to the market-town, Miss Mitford published another interesting volume of descriptions, entitled "Belford Regis." She edited three volumes, called "Stories of American Life by American Writers." She also published a volume of "Country Stories;" a volume of "Dramatic Scenes;" an opera called
