BOWDITCH, Nathaniel, a self-taught Amercian mathematician, born in 1773, of humble parents, at Salem in Massachusetts. He was bred to his father’s business as a cooper, and afterwards apprenticed to a ship-chandler. His taste for mathematics early developed itself; and ho acquired Latin that he might study Newton’s Principia. In 1795 he sailed as supercargo, in which capacity he made four long voyages; and, being an excellent navigator, he afterwards commanded a vessel, instructing his crews in taking lunar and other observations. He edited three editions of Hamilton Moore’s Navigation, and in 1802 published a valuable work, New American Practical Navigator, founded on the earlier treatise by Moore. In 1804 he became actuary to a Boston insurance company; and in the midst of his active and useful career published a translation of the Mécanique céleste of Laplace, with annotations,—a work which will better prove the great acquirements of this self-taught philosopher than any laboured panegyric. He died at Boston in 1838. A life of Bowditch was written by his son in 1839, and is prefixed to the last volume, published posthumously, of the translation of Laplace.