Four years after the birth of Sophie Germain was born in Jedburgh, Scotland, one whom an English writer has declared was "the most remarkable scientific woman our country has produced." She was the daughter of a naval officer, Sir William Fairfax; but is best known as Mary Somerville. Her life has been well described as an "unobtrusive record of what can be done by the steady culture of good natural powers and the pursuit of a high standard of excellence in order to win for a woman a distinguished place in the sphere naturally reserved for men, without parting with any of those characteristics of mind, or character, or demeanor which have ever been taken to form the grace and the glory of womanhood."[127] The surroundings of her youth were not conducive to scientific pursuits. On the contrary, they were entirely unfavorable to her manifest inclinations in that direction. Having scarcely any of the advantages of a school education, she was obliged to depend almost entirely on her own unaided efforts for the knowledge she actually acquired. She, like Sophie Germain, was essentially a self-made woman; and her success was achieved only after long labor and suffering and in spite of the persistent opposition of family and friends. When she was about fifteen years old, the future Mrs. Somerville received her first introduction to mathematics; and then, strange to say, it was through a fashion magazine. At the end of a page of this magazine, "I read," writes Mrs. Somerville, "what appeared to me to be simply an arithmetical question; but in turning the page I was surprised to see strange-looking lines mixed with letters, chiefly X's and Y's, and asked 'What is that?'" She was told it was a kind of arithmetic, called algebra. Her interest was at once aroused; and she resolved forthwith to seek information regarding the curious lines and letters which had so excited her curiosity. "Unfortunately," she tells us, "none of our acquaintances or relatives knew anything of science or natural history; nor, had they done so, should I have had courage to ask of them a question, for I should have been laughed at."