[336] Jean Théophile Desaguliers, or Des Aguliers (1683-1744) was the son of a Protestant who left France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He became professor of physics at Oxford, and afterwards gave lectures in London. Later he became chaplain to the Prince of Wales. He published several works on physics.
[337] Charles Hutton (1737-1823), professor of mathematics at Woolwich (1772-1807). His Mathematical Tables (1785) and Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary (1795-1796) are well known.
[338] James Epps (1773-1839) contributed a number of memoirs on the use and corrections of instruments. He was assistant secretary of the Astronomical Society.
[339] John Hutchinson (1674-1737) was one of the first to try to reconcile the new science of geology with Genesis. He denied the Newtonian hypothesis as dangerous to religion, and because it necessitated a vacuum. He was a mystic in his interpretation of the Scriptures, and created a sect that went under the name of Hutchinsonians.
[340] John Rowning, a Lincolnshire rector, died in 1771. He wrote on physics, and published a memoir on A machine for finding the roots of equations universally (1770).
[341] It is always difficult to sanction this spelling of the name of this Jesuit father who is so often mentioned in the analytic treatment of conics. He was born in Ragusa in 1711, and the original spelling was Ruđer Josip Bošković. When he went to live in Italy, as professor of mathematics at Rome (1740) and at Pavia, the name was spelled Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovich, although Boscovicci would seem to a foreigner more natural. His astronomical work was notable, and in his De maculis solaribus (1736) there is the first determination of the equator of a planet by observing the motion of spots on its surface. Boscovich came near having some contact with America, for he was delegated to observe in California the transit of Venus in 1755, being prevented by the dissolution of his order just at that time. He died in 1787, at Milan.
[342] James Granger (1723-1776) who wrote the Biographical History of England, London, 1769. His collection of prints was remarkable, numbering some fourteen thousand.
[343] He was curator of experiments for the Royal Society. He wrote a large number of books and monographs on physics. He died about 1713.
[344] Lee seems to have made no impression on biographers.
[345] This work appeared at London in 1852.