154 JAMES SMITHSON AND HIS BEQUEST. 



collectively, or have its individual members, experienced losses so 

 severe, or so much in every respect to be deplored." Among the names 

 then referred to were those of Dr. W. H. Wollaston, Dr. Thomas Young, 

 and Sir Humphrey Davy. To these illustrious savaus he adds that of 

 James Smifchson, who, he says, "has added eight communications to our 

 Transactions. lie was distinguished by the intimate friendship of Mr. 

 Cavendish, and rivalled our most expert chemists in elegant analyses."* 



At the following anniversary meeting of the Royal Society, November 

 30, 1830, the president, Sir Davies Gilbert, delivered an address in 

 which, after speaking of the death of Major Kennele and Mr. Chevenix, 

 he says: 



# # * u The only remaining individual who has taken a direct and 

 active part in our labours, by contributing to the Transactions, is Mr. 

 James Lewis Smithson, and of this gentleman I must be allowed to 

 speak with affection. We were at Oxford together, of the same college, 

 and our acquaintance continued to the time of his decease. 



" Mr. Smithson, then called Macie, and an undergraduate, had the 

 reputation of excelling all other resident members of the University in 

 the knowledge of chemistry. He was early honored by an intimate 

 acquaintance with Mr. Cavendish; he was admitted into the Royal 

 Society, and soon after presented a paper on the very curious concretion 

 frequently found in the hollow of bambu canes, named Tabasheer. This 

 he found to consist almost entirely of silex, existing in a manner similar 

 to what Davy long afterwards discovered in the epidermis of reeds and 

 grasses. 



" Mr. Smithson enriched our Transactions with seven other communi- 

 cations : A chemical analysis of some calamines. Account of a discov- 

 ery of native minium. On the composition and crystallization of certain 

 sulphurets from Huel Boys in Cornwall. On the composition of zeolite. 

 On a substance procured from the elm tree, called rim in. On a saline 

 substance from Mount Vesuvius. Facts relative to the colouring matter 

 of vegetables. 



"He was the friend of Dr. Wollaston, and al the same time his rival 

 in the manipulation and analysis of small quantities. Ayadt) S 1 epts 

 ijos ppoTotai. Mr. Smithson frequently repeated an occurrence with 

 much pleasure and exultation, as exceeding anything that could be 

 brought into competition with it; and this must apologize for my in- 

 troducing what might otherwise be deemed an anecdote too light and 

 trifling on such an occasion as the present. 



"Mr. Smithson declared that happening to observe a tear gliding 

 down a lady's cheek, he endeavored to catch it on a crystal vessel; that 

 one-half of the drop escaped, but having preserved the other half he 

 submitted it to reagents, and detected what was then called microcosmic 

 salt, with muriate of soda, and, I think, three or four more saline sub- 

 stances, held in solution. 



* Philosophical Magazine, 1630, vol. vii, p. 42. 



