This attitude of the members of the nobility toward the education of their daughters was essentially the same as that of the universities of Italy toward women who had a thirst for knowledge. For from the dawn of learning in Salerno to the present there never was a time when women were not as cordially welcomed to the universities as students and professors as were the men; and never a time when the merit of intellectual work was not determined without regard to sex. In Bologna, where were passed the sixty-seven years of her mortal life, the name of Laura Bassi, like that of her illustrious colleague, Luigi Galvani, is one to conjure with, and a name that is still pronounced with respect and reverence. Her last resting place is in the Church of Corpus Domini, the same sacred shrine in which were deposited all that was mortal of the renowned discoverer of galvanic electricity.[157] Two years after Signora Bassi was gathered to her fathers there was born near Edinburgh to a Scotch admiral, Sir William George Fairfax, an infant daughter who was destined to shed as much luster on her sex in the British Isles as the incomparable Laura Bassi had diffused on womankind in Italy during her brilliant career in "Bologna, the learned." She is known in the annals of science as Mary Somerville, and was in every way a worthy successor of her famous sister in Italy, both as a woman and as a votary of science. Although her chief title to fame is her notable work in mathematical astronomy, especially her translation of Laplace's _Mechanique Celeste_, she is likewise to be accorded a prominent place among scientific investigators for her contributions to physics and cognate branches of knowledge. Chief among these are her works on the _Connection of the Physical Sciences_ and _Physical Geography_. As to the last production, no less an authority than Alexander von Humboldt pronounced it an exact and admirable treatise, and wrote of it as "that excellent work which has charmed and instructed me since its first appearance." In a letter from the illustrious German savant to the gifted authoress of the two last-named volumes occurs the following paragraph: "To the great superiority you possess and which has so nobly illustrated your name on the high regions of mathematical analysis, you add, Madam, a variety of information in all parts of physics and descriptive natural history. After the _Mechanism of the Heavens_, the philosophical _Connection of the Physical Sciences_ has been the object of my profound admiration.... The author of the vast _Cosmos_ should more than any one else salute the _Physical Geography_ of Mary Somerville.... I know of no work on physical geography in any language that can compare with yours."