SMECTYMNUUS 



SMILES 



515 



Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1759. 

 In 1753 he was chosen a member of the Royal 

 Society ; and in the following year he visited the 

 Netherlands, and inspected the engineering works 

 of that country. In 1755 the second wooden light- 

 house on Eddystone ( q. v. ) rock was destroyed by 

 fire, and the re-erection of the work was entrusted 

 to Smeatou. The new lighthouse was built of 

 stone (1756-59), and this great work, the greatest 

 of its kind hitherto undertaken, remained for 120 

 years a stable monument of Smeaton's engineering 

 skill, till the erection of the new Eddystone close 

 by (1879-82). Even after his great achievement 

 Smeaton seems to have had little employment, as 

 he applied for and obtained in 1764 the post of 

 ' receiver of the Derwentwater estate ; ' and this 

 situation he held till 1777, by which time he was 

 in full professional employment. The chief of his 

 other engineering works were Ramsgate harbour 

 (1774); the Forth and Clyde Canal; several im- 

 portant bridges in Scotland (Perth, Banff, Cold- 

 stream), together with an immense amount of 

 mill-machinery. He also improved Newcomen's 

 steam-engine. He was in constant attendance in 

 parliament during a large portion of his life. In 

 1783 his health Degan to decline, and he retired 

 from active business, dying at Austhorp of par- 

 alysis, 28th October 17*2. In 1781 Smeaton wrote 

 a Narrative of the Construction of the Eddystone 

 Lighthouse. The Society of Civil Engineers pub- 

 lished posthumously his numerous professional 

 Reports (3 vols. 1797), which were regarded by his 

 successors ' as a mine of wealth for the sound prin- 

 ciples which they unfold, and the able practice they 

 exemplify.' 



See a Short Narrative of John Smeaton (1793); and 

 Smiles's Live* of the Engineer! ( vol. ii. ; new ed. 1874 ). 



Sniectyninuns, a name compounded of the 

 initials of the following five divines : Stephen 

 Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, 

 Matthew Newcomen, and William Spuretow, joint- 

 authors of An Answer (1641) to Bishop Hall's 

 Humble Remonstrance to the High Court of Parlia- 

 ment ( 1641 ), in defence of the liturgy and epis- 

 copal government. Of the five authors, the chief 

 was Thomas Young, Milton's tutor. 



Smedley. FRANCIS EDWARD, novelist, was born 

 in 1818 at Marlowe. Always deformed, he took 

 early to writing, his half-dozen works including 

 Frank Fairleigh ( 1850), Lewis Arundel ( 1852), and 

 Harry Coverdale's Courtship ( 1854 ). Bright cheery 

 books, these appeared originally in Sharpe's Maga- 

 zine, of which Smedley for a time was editor, and 

 they were illustrated by Cruikshank and 'Phiz.' 

 He died in London, 1st May 1864. 



Smeinogorsk. See ZMEINOGORSK. 



Smell. See NOSE, SENSATION. 



Smelling Salts. See SALTS. 



Smelt (Osmerus), a genus of the Salmon family 

 ( Sal moil ill ii i, characterised by the strong fang-like 

 teeth, especially on the tongue and on the tip of 

 the vomer, and by the rather large scales, which 

 readily fall off. The Common Smelt ( 0. eperlanus), 

 called Spirting or Sparling in Scotland, and Eper- 

 Ian in France, is a fish of 8 or 10 inches (rarely 

 12 inches) in length. The form is very trout-like, 

 but rather more slender; the tail is larger in propor- 

 tion, and more forked. The lower jaw is longer 

 than the upper. The back is whitish, tinged with 

 green ; the upper part of the sides shows bluish 

 tints, the lower part of the sides and the belly 

 are of a bright silvery colour. The smelt has 

 a peculiar, cucumber-like smell, and a delicious 

 flavour, on account of which it is highly esteemed 

 for the table. From the sea smelts often ascend 

 estuaries and rivers, and they thrive well in lakes 



and ponds. The same is true of the common 

 American species 0. mordax. A third species 

 0. thaleichthys of smaller size occurs on the 

 Pacific coasts of North America, and another 

 0. dentex on the corresponding Asiatic coasts. 

 The name smelt is sometimes extended to related 

 genera e.g. Argentina, Retropinna, and the 

 Pacific surf-smelts (Hypomesus). 



Smelting. See COPPER, IRON, &c. 



Snieril, or SEMIRU, the highest mountain of 

 Java near the eastern end of the island. It is 

 12,240 feet high, and is an active volcano. 



Smerwick, a peninsula and bay in County 

 Kerry, Ireland, where in July 1579 Sir James Fitz- 

 maurice landed, by authority of the pope, with a 

 number of Italian and Spanish soldiers. They 

 entrenched themselves within a fort, but in Novem- 

 ber were overpowered and put to the sword, to the 

 number of six hundred, by Lord-deputy Grey and 

 young Walter Raleigh. This gruesome story is 

 introduced into Kingsley's Westward Ho ! 



SiiK'lnua. FREDERICK (1824-84), pianist and 

 composer, was born at Leitomischl in Bohemia, and 



Elayed or directed concerts till in 1874 he lost his 

 earing. He made artistic use of Bohemian music, 

 and composed symphonic works in Wallenstein's 

 Camp, Richard III., Earl Haco, Libusa, &c., and 

 operas (Dalibor, A Kiss, The Secret, &c.). 

 Smew. See MERGANSER. 

 Slililace:e, a tribe of the natural order 

 Liliacese, formerly by Lindley and others regarded 

 as a distinct order under that name, and ranked 

 by Lindley in his class Dictyogens (q.v.), and con- 

 sisting of herbaceous or half-shrubby plants, gener- 

 ally more or less climbing, with reticulated leaves, 

 and bisexual or polygamous flowers, a six -parted 

 perianth, six stamens, a free three-celled ovary, 

 with cells one or many seeded, three stigmas, and 

 a roundish berry. The typical genus (Smilax) is, 

 from an economical point of view, the most import- 

 ant of the tribe. Over 200 species are included in 

 the sub-order, about 180 being comprised in the 

 genus Smilax. The Sarsaparilla ( q.v. ) of commerce 

 is the product of the roots of several species of 

 Smilax ; and the large fleshy tubers of S. China, 

 a native of China and Japan, are regarded as 

 nutritious and are used for food. S. pseudo-China, 

 an American species, has similar tubers, which 

 are used for making beer and for fattening hogs in 

 some parts of the southern United States. 



Smiles. SAMUEL, author of Self-Help, was born 

 at Haddington in 1812. His family owed much to 

 the intelligence, shrewdness, and force of character of 

 their mother, who, when left a widow with a family 

 of eleven, continued successfully to conduct a small 

 business. Samuel Smiles had artistic leanings, but 

 studied medicine in Edinburgh, took his degree when 

 he was twenty, and published at his own expense a 

 work on Physical Education (1838). At first he 

 practised in Haddington as a medical man with 

 small success, lectured on chemistry, and wrote 

 articles for an Edinburgh newspaper. He settled 

 as a surgeon in Leeds, but abandoned this for the 

 editorial chair of the Leeds Times. He became secre- 

 tary of the Leeds and Thirsk Railway Company in 

 1845, and in 1854 secretary of the South-Eastern 

 Railway, retiring in 1866. While at Leeds he 

 came into contact with George Steplienson, and con- 

 ceived the idea of \yriting his life, a work which he 

 eventually accomplished (1857). Self-Help followed 

 in 1859, and was soon an assured success, 20,000 

 copies being sold during the first year, and up till 

 1889 the sales had reached 150,000 copies, while the 

 book had been translated into seventeen languages. 

 Some young men in Leeds who met in the evening 

 for self-education had asked Smiles 'to talk to them 



