BAKER (Henry)

, an ingenious and diligent naturalist, was born in London about the beginning of the 18th century. He was brought up under an eminent bookseller, but being of a philosophical turn of mind, he quitted that line of business soon after the expiration of his apprenticeship, and took to the employment of teaching deaf and dumb persons to speak and write &c, in which occupation, in the course of his life he acquired a handsome fortune. For his amusement he cultivated various natural and philosophical sciences, particularly botany, natural history, and microscopical subjects, in which he especially excelled, having, in the year 1744, obtained the Royal Society's gold medal, for his microscopical experiments on the crystallizations and consigurations of saline particles. He had various papers published in the Philos. Trans. of the Royal Society, of which he was a worthy member, as well as of the Societies of Antiquaries, and of Arts. He was author of many pieces, on various subjects, the principal of which were, his Treatise on the Water Polype, and two Treatises on the Microscope, viz, The Microscope made easy, and Employment for the Microscope, which have gone through several editions.

Mr. Baker married Sophia, youngest daughter of the celebrated Daniel Defoe, by whom he had two sons, who both died before him. He terminated an honourable and useful life, at his apartments in the Strand on the 25th of November 1774, being then upwards of 70 years of age.

BAKER's Central Rule, for the Construction of Equations, is a method of constructing all equations, not exceeding the 4th degree, by means of a given parabola and a circle, without any previous reduction of them, or first taking away their second term. See Central Rule.