C. F. Gauss

Abstract

IN August of last year the editor of NATURE forwarded to me a letter he had received from Mr. Robert Gauss, of the firm of McDearman and Gauss, attorneys at law, St. Charles, Missouri, U.S.A. The object of this letter was to obtain, if possible, a copy of the Proceedings of the Royal Society (vol. vii.), referred to in my centenary notice of Gauss (NATURE, vol. xv. p. 533). I have not succeeded in obtaining this volume, and I learn from Mr. Walter White that there is no copy available from the Royal Society. In the course of a subsequent correspondence I have learnt several family particulars which, as I have Mr. Gauss's permission, I should like to give to supplement my former notice referred to above. I am the more disposed to do so as the notice of Gauss in the Encycl. Brit. (vol. x.) gives but scanty details, and, I observe, gives the erroneous date of April 23 (for April 30) as his birthday (vol. xv. p. 533), and further, all reference to Gauss's married life was omitted in my notice. Gauss, it is well known, was twice married. By his first wife he had two sons, Joseph and Louis, and one daughter, Minna; Joseph died in Europe four or five years ago, Louis died in infancy, and Minna, wife of Prof. Ewald, of Göttingen, died about ten years before her father. The second wife was Minna Waldeck (there is a letter from her mother to Olbers, in Dr. Bruhns's “Briefe zwischen A. v. Humboldt und Gauss,” No. vi.); by her Gauss had also two sons and a daughter. This daughter, Theresa, died in Europe. The second son, William, settled in Missouri, and died August 23, 1879, at St. Louis. My informant says he died rich, and his sons are very well circumstanced in business: one son is a Presbyterian minister. Eugene Gauss, the eldest son by the second marriage, is the only living child of C. F. Gauss, and is in his sixty-seventh year (almost entirely blind with cataract in his eyes); he is Mr. R. Gauss's father; he left Europe about 1831, and has not since left his adopted country. The family propose to publish a translation of the several memoirs of Gauss in book form, and are very desirous of procuring copies of his letters to scientific men, more especially such as would be illustrative of his character and thoughts on general subjects. I have an extract before me of a letter from the daughter Theresa (date December 6, 1850), in which she says: “I cannot tell you much out of our quiet, simple life; one day and one year resembles very much the other, although they are peaceful days and years, for father, even now in his advanced years, retains his health unimpaired, and an always cheerful and happy frame of mind;” and then follows an account of the celebration in July, 1849, of his “semicentennial doctors’-jubilee.” Brunswick and Göttingen heaped honours upon him, and the “King sent him autograph congratulations and bestowed on him the degree of a higher order; of letters and addresses there was no end”... “then father delivered an address in the University hall, which was filled to overflowing with spectators and auditors, and which was so decorated with flowers as to look like a fairy palace. Even the houses in the streets through which he passed were decorated, and the city swarmed with well-dressed people as on a holiday. When at last, at seven o'clock, he returned home from the dinner, he was indeed very much exhausted, and it was well that the torch-light procession, which the students had thought of getting up in his honour, was, at his wish, omitted.” It was a matter of regret to the old man that not one of his sons was able to be present.