In 1869 there was an agitation in England to gain for women the right to vote in Parliamentary elections. Mrs. Somerville thought decidedly that women ought to have the vote and signed petitions for it, and she felt it to be an honour to be put on the General Committee for Woman Suffrage in London. She thought that in many ways the laws were unjust to women, and also that there was still a strong prejudice against the higher education of women. She was much interested in all that was being done in England to improve girls’ education, remembering well her own difficulties as a girl, and heard with much delight of the establishment of the women’s colleges at Cambridge. After her death one of the first women’s colleges at Oxford was named after her, Somerville College. In 1868 she was much interested in a tremendous eruption of Mount Vesuvius, the volcano which she could see from her windows on the other side of the bay of Naples. Day after day she watched with a telescope the glowing streams of lava and the flame and smoke which burst from the mountain, carrying with it great rocks into the air. It was a great pleasure to her to see some distinguished men of science, who came from England to see the eruption, and who spent an evening with her, during which she enjoyed much scientific conversation. Mrs. Somerville lived to a great old age. When she was ninety her eyesight and the powers of her mind were still perfectly good. She still studied science and the higher mathematics in the early morning hours, afterwards she would read Shakespeare or Dante, or Homer in the original. She regularly read the newspapers, and enjoyed a cheerful novel in the evening, or a game of bezique with her daughters. It was for her a constant joy to watch the sunsets over the bay of Naples: the flowers or seaweeds which her daughters brought in from their walks, or the tame birds she had in her room, were always a delight. She had ever been deeply religious, and everything in nature spoke to her of the great God who had created all things, whilst the laws which were revealed to her in her scientific studies gave her ever new cause to love and adore her heavenly Father. Friends from England and Italy came often to see her, for she was much beloved. Her only infirmity was that she was very deaf; but no one, young or old, thought it a hardship to sit by the little, sweet, frail old lady and tell her about the things that were going on in the world outside in which she still took so keen an interest. Even when she was ninety-two she would drive out sometimes for several hours. She often forgot recent events and the names of people, but she wrote herself at the age of ninety-two: “I am still able to read books on the higher algebra for four or five hours in the morning, and even to solve the problems. Sometimes I find them difficult, but my old obstinacy remains, for if I do not succeed to-day I attack them again on the morrow. I also enjoy reading about all the