HOPKINS, WILLIAM (17931866)

This article appears in Volume V13, Page 685 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: HIG-HOR

HOPKINS, WILLIAM (17931866) , English mathematician and geologist, was born at Kingston-on-Soar, in Nottingham-shire, on the 2nd of February 1793. In his youth he learned

practical

PRACTICAL

agriculture in Norfolk and afterwards took an extensive farm in Suffolk. In this he was unsuccessful. At the age of thirty he entered St Peter's College,

Cambridge

, taking his degree of B.A. in 1827 as seventh wrangler and M.A. in 183o. In 1833 he published Elements of Trigonometry. He was distinguished for his mathematical knowledge, and became eminently successful as a private tutor, many of his pupils attaining high distinction. About 1833, through

meeting

MEETING (from " to meet," to come together, assemble, 0. Eng. metals ; cf. Du. moeten, Swed. mota, Goth. gamotjan, &c., derivatives of the Teut. word for a meeting, seen in O. Eng. Wit, moot, an assembly of the people; cf. witanagemot)

Sedgwick at Barmouth and joining him in several excursions, he became intensely interested in geology. Thereafter, in papers published by the

Cambridge

Philosophical Society and the

Geological

GEOLOGICAL

Society of London, he entered largely into mathematical inquiries connected with geology, dealing with the effects which an elevatory force acting from below would produce on a portion of the earth's crust, in fissures, faults, &c. In this way he discussed the

elevation

ELEVATION

and denudation of the Lake

district

DISTRICT

, the

Wealden

WEALDEN

area, and the Bas Boulonnais. He wrote also on the motion of glaciers and the transport of erratic blocks. So ably had he grappled with many difficult problems that in 185o the Wollaston

medal

MEDAL (Fr. medaille, from Lat. metallum)

was awarded to him by the

Geological

GEOLOGICAL

Society of London; and in the following year he was elected president. In his second address (1853) he criticized Elie de Beaumont's theory of the

elevation

ELEVATION

of mountain-chains and showed the imperfect evidence on which it rested. He brought before the Geological Society in 1851 an important

paper

PAPER
PAPER (Fr. papier, from Lat. papyrus)

On the Causes which may have produced changes in the Earth's superficial Temperature. He was president of the British Association for 1853. His later researches included observations on the conductivity of various substances for heat, and on the effect of pressure on the temperature of fusion of different bodies. He died at Cambridge on the 13th of October 1866.
Obituary by W. W.

Smyth

, in Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1867), p. xxix.

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