THE DISCOVERER OF THE LAW OF GRAVITATION.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 23, Issue 7, 26 January 1912, Page 5

THE DISCOVERER OF THE LAW OF GRAVITATION.

Sir Isaac Newton, the great philosu.ii r and discoverer of the’' law of gravitation, was born a weati a ud sickly infant. * Lis talents were not appar.n.ly extraordinary until his twelfth y ear ; for ' years he had kept a low place in his school at Grantham, until one day, having fought and beaten one of his schoolfellows, he became fired with the ambition to. beat him equally thoroughly at scholarship. He succeeded so well that he became head of the school. • His leisure he devoted to ALL KINDS OF MECHANICAL INVENTIONS : ■ windmills, water-clocks, even 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 from school when he was fifteen years of age to help in the house and on the land. He 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 talents were TOO GREAT TO BE WASTED for lack of education, and she sent, him back to his grammar-school to prepare for a University terse.

From this time onwards his rise to the ranks of the foremost scholars in f e world was steady and certain. He 1 ecame the author of , NUMBERLESS SCIENTIFIC • WORKS.

and later on became a great favourite at . the Court of George 11. Newton’s absence of mind in proverbial. • He would forget everything and everybody when engaged in verifying his theories. His character was simple and his 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 picking up pebbles on the shore of the great undiscovered ocean of truth." He died on March 20, 1727, and was buried, in Westminster Abbey.