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See also: Stirling of Garden, and See also: grandson of See also: Sir Archibald Stirling of Keir (See also: Lord Garden, a lord of session), was See also: born at Garden, See also: Stirlingshire, in 1692
.
At eighteen years of age he went to See also: Oxford, where, chiefly through the influence of the See also: earl of See also: Mar, he was nominated (1711) one of See also: Bishop Warner's exhibitioners at Balliol
.
In 1715 he was expelled on account of his See also: correspondence with members of the Keir and Garden families, who were noted See also: Jacobites, and had been See also: accessory to the " Gathering of the Brig o' Turk " in 1708
.
From Oxford he made his way to Venice, where he occupied himself as a professor of See also: mathematics
.
In 1717 appeared his Lineae tertii ordinis Newtonianae, sive
.
.
.
(8vo, Oxford)
.
While in Venice, also, he communicated, through Sir Isaac See also: Newton, to the Royal Society a paper entitled " Methodus differentialis Newtoniana illustrata" (Phil
.
Trans., 1718)
.
Fearing assassination on account of having discovered a See also: trade secret of the See also: glass-makers of Venice, he returned with Newton's help to See also: London about the See also: year 1725
.
In London he remained for ten years, being most See also: part of the See also: time connected with an See also: academy in Tower Street, and devoting his leisure to mathematics and correspondence with eminent mathematicians
.
In 1730 his most important See also: work was published, the Methodus differentialis, sive traclatus de summa-/lone el interpolatione serierum infinitarum (4to, London), which, it must be noted, is something more than an expansion of the paper of 1718
.
In 1735 he communicated to the Royal Society a paper " On the Figure of the See also: Earth, and on the Variation of the Force of Gravity at its See also: Surface." In the same year he was appointed manager for the Scots See also: Mining See also: Company at Ieadhills
.
We are thus prepared to find that his next paper to the Royal Society was concerned, not with pure, but with applied science—" Description of a Machine to See also: blow Fire by the Fall of See also: Water " (Phil
.
Trans
.
1745)
.
His name is also connected with another See also: practical undertaking, since grown to vast dimensions
.
The accounts of the city of See also: Glasgow for 1752 show that the very first instalment of ten millions sterling spent in making Glasgow a seaport, viz. a sum of £28, 4s
.
4d., was for a See also: silver See also: tea-kettle to be presented to " See also: James Stirling, mathematician, for his service, pains, and trouble in
See also: surveying the See also: river towards deepening it by locks." Stirling died in See also: Edinburgh on the 5th of See also: December 1770
.
See W
.
See also: Fraser, The Stirlings of Keir, and their See also: Family Papers, (Edinburgh, 1858) ; " See also: Modern See also: History of See also: Leadhills," in Gentleman's See also: Magazine (See also: June, 18B3); Brewster, See also: Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton, ii
.
300, 307, 411, 516; J
.
Nicol, Vital See also: Statistics of Glasgow (1881-1885), p
.
70; Glasgow Herald (Aug
.
5, 1886) . Another edition of the Lineae tertii ordinis was published in See also: Paris in 1797; another edition of the Methodus differentialis in London in 1764; and a See also: translation of the latter into See also: English by Halliday in London in 1749
.
A considerable collection of See also: literary remains, consisting of papers, letters and two See also: manuscript volumes of a See also: treatise on weights and See also: measures, are still preserved at Garden
.
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