References to all early publications are to be found in
Todhunter, History of the Mathematical Theories of Attraction, 2 volumes, 1873.
The principal early papers in the present connection were:
Meyer, Crelle, xxiv, 1842.
Riemann, Gott. Abh., ix, 3, 1860; and Werke, p. 168.
Poisson, Connaissance des Temps for 1837 (published 1834). (This appears to contain the first reference to Jacobi's result that ellipsoids are possible equilibrium forms; stated by Jacobi in a letter to the French Academy 1834.)
Jacobi, Acad. des Sciences, 1834.
Liouville, Journal de VEcole Polytech., xiv, 290, 1834; and Liouville's Journal, xvi, 241. Ivory, Phil. Trans., Part I, 57, 1838.
de Pontecoulant, Systeme du Monde, II.
A list of further early papers is given by Darwin, Scientific Papers, vol. in, p. 119, taken from a report to the British Association, 1882, by W. M. Hicks, and a further list by Matthiessen, Schriften der Univ. zu Kiel, vi, 1859. Extensive references are also given by S. Oppenheim, ‘Die Theorie der Gleichgewichtsfiguren der Himmelskörper’, Encyklopädie der Mathematischen Wissenschaften, vi, 2, B, pp. 1-79; and by P. Appell, Mecanique Rationelle, vol. iv, 1921.
The problem of the stability of the forms was first broached in:
Poincaré, Ada Math., vn, 259, 1885.
Further discussions of stability are given by:
Schwarzschild, Ann. d. Miinchener Sternwarte, in, 233, 1897.
Thomson and Tait, Natural Philosophy, 1879.
Routh, Stability of Steady Motion, 1877.
Hilbert, Gott. Nach., 49, 1904.
Other papers by Poincare include:
Phil. Trans., 198 A, 333, 1902.
Bulletin Astron., n, 117, 1885.
The papers of Darwin are most readily accessible in:
Darwin, Scientific Papers, vol. in, Cambridge, 1910.
Here errors in the original papers are corrected, and numerous detailed references to other earlier work and his own papers given.
Jeans's papers are as follows:
Phil. Trans., 200 A, 67, 1902. (In this paper it is concluded that the two-dimensional pearshaped series is stable.)
Phil. Trans., 217 A, 7, 1916. (This concerns the three-dimensional pear, but in passing, the incorrect conclusion of the 1902 paper is referred to and corrected, p. 28.)
Shortened versions of these papers are given by Jeans in his two books:
Problems of Cosmogony and Stellar Dynamics, Cambridge, 1919.
Astronomy and Cosmogony, Cambridge, 1929.