THE DISCOVERER OF THE LAW OF GRAVITATION

North Otago Times, 2 December 1911, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE DISCOVERER OF THE LAW OF GRAVITATION

I Sir ftaao Newton, the great philosopher and discoverer of the law ol gravitation, was born a weatl and sickly infant. His talents were not I apparently extraordinary until his' twelfth year; for years he bad kept a low place In his school at Grantham, until one day, having fought and beaten ono of his schoolfellows, he becamo fired with the ambition to beat him equally thoroughly at scholarship. He succeeded so well that be became head of the school, Hiß leisure he devoted to ALL KINDS OP MECHANICAL INVENTIONS: windmills, water-clocks, oven a carriage propelled by the person in it. These quiet amusements he varied by flying kites at night with lanterns attached to their tails, and thereby frightening the simple Lincolnshire country-folk. His stepfather dying, his mother recalled him Irom school when he was fifteen years of age to help in the house and on the land. Ho was frequently sent, in company with an old servant, to buy and sell at Grantham Market; but he invariably stopped at some distance from the town, and, lying under a hedge, would read and study, sending the servant on to do the business alone. His mother soon recognised that her son's talentß were

TOO GREAT TO BE WASTED for lack- of education, and she sent him back to his grammar-school to prepare for a University course, From this time onwards his rise to the' ranks of tho foremost scholars in the world was steady and certain. Ho became the author of . NUMBERLESS SCIENTIFIC WORKS,

He was knighted by Queen Anno, and later on became a great favourite at the Court ot George 11. Newton's absence ol mind in proverbial. Ho would iorget everything and everybody when engaged in verifying bis theories. His character was simple and hia charity unfailing. For all his great attainments and the WORLD-WIDE HONOURS SHOWERED ON HIM, he was very modest, and once said that he " was but a child picking up pebbles on tho shore of the great undiscovered ocean of truth," He died on March 20, 1727, and was burled In Westminster Abbey.