MARTIN, Benjamin, one of the most eminent artists and mathematicians of the age, was born in 1704. After publishing a variety of ingenious treatises, and particularly a Scientific Magazine under his own name, and carrying on for many years a very extensive trade as an optician and globe-maker in Fleet-street, the growing infirmities of age compelled him to withdraw from the active part of business. Trusting too fatally to what he thought the integrity of others, he unfortunately, though with a capital more than sufficient to pay all his debts, became a bankrupt. The unhappy old man, in a moment of desperation from this unexpected stroke, attempted to destroy himself; and the wound, though not immediately mortal, hastened his death, which happened February 9th 1782, in his 78th year. He had a valuable collection of fossils and curiosities of almost every species; which, after his death, were almost given away by public auction. His principal publications, as far as they have occurred to recollection, are, The Philosophic Grammar; being a view of the present state of experimental physiology, or natural philosophy, 1735, 8vo. A new, complete, and universal System or Body of Decimal Arithmetic, 1735, 8vo. The young Students Memorial Book, or Patent Library, 1735, 8vo. Description and Use of both the Globes, the Armillary Sphere and Orrery, Trigonometry, 1736, 2 vols. 8vo. Memoirs of the Academy of Paris, 1740, 5 vols. System of the Newtonian Philosophy, 1759, 3 vols. New Elements of Optics, 1759. Mathematical Institutions, viz. Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, and Fluxions, 1759. Natural History of England, with a Map of each County, 1759, 2 vols. Philology, and Philosophical Geography, 1759. Mathematical Institutions, 1764, 2 vols. Lives of Philosophers, their Inventions, &c. 1764. Introduction to the Newtonian Philosophy, 1765. Institutions of Astronomical Calculations, 2 parts, 1765. Description and Use of the Air Pump, 1766. Description of the Torricellian Barometer, 1766. Appendix to the Description and Use of the Globes, 1766. Philosophia Britannica, 1778, 3 vols. Gentleman and Lady's Philosophy, 3 vols. Miscellaneous Correspondence, 4 vols. System of Philology. Philosophical Geography. Magazine complete, 14 vols. Principles of Pump-work.
Theory of the Hydrometer. Doctrine of Logarithms.