NIEUWLAND, PETER, a Dutch writer, remarkable for the precocity and versatility of his talents, was the son of a village carpenter, and was born at Diemermeer, near Amsterdam, in 1764. Under the humble tuition of his parents, his infant mind took to learning with an instinctive ardour, and he could compose verses and solve geometrical problems before the age of eight. This ardent predilection for two branches of study so dissimilar, continued to be the prominent feature in his opening intellectual character. At the university of Leyden, to which he had been sent through the liberal patronage of Bernard Bosch, he was equally noted for the easy rapidity with which he solved the most intricate problems of the calculus, and the spirited elegance with which he translated the poetry of the classics. When his academical education had been finished, he appeared before the public in 1787 as the author of a treatise on the means of ascertaining the latitude at sea, and in 1788 as the author of a volume of occasional poems. It was not until he had been appointed professor of navigation and natural philosophy at Amsterdam in 1789 that his attention was exclusively devoted to mathematical studies. He published, in 1793, a treatise on the art of navigation, and two papers in Bode's Astronomical Almanac. Other subjects of a kindred nature were engaging his mind; and he was acquiring great academical fame at Leyden in the chair of physics, mathematics, and astronomy, to which he had been promoted in 1793, when he was cut off at the age of thirty. Among Nieuwland's poems is an elegy, entitled Orion, which became very popular in Holland.