290 



SMALT SMELL 



hud long been practised iu Turkey, especially 

 among females, for the preservation of the beauty 

 of young girls, when the celebrated lady Montague 

 introduced it into Western Europe. In Constanti- 

 nople, whither she had accompanied her husband, 

 she caused her son, six years old, to be inoculated, 

 and after her return to England, in 1722, her 

 daughter also. From that time inoculation became 

 common in England, notwithstanding the opposi- 

 tion of many physicians, and afterwards in other 

 countries; but never became universal, because 

 many prejudices were entertained against it, and 

 because the disease, although mitigated, is yet not 

 quite without danger. More recently, inoculation 

 has been entirely superseded by vaccination, which 

 is far more safe. See Vaccination. 



SMALT. See Cobalt. 



SMART, CHRISTOPHER, born in 1722, at Ship- 

 bourne, in Kent, was placed at the grammar school 

 in Durham, where his precocious talent obtained 

 him the patronage of the duchess of Cleveland, who 

 educated him at Pembroke college, Cambridge. A 

 fellowship was conferred on him by his college in 

 1745. His marriage, in 1753, having vacated his 

 fellowship, he settled in London, and commenced 

 author by profession ; in which capacity he became 

 a principal contributor to the Old Woman's Maga- 

 zine, and the Universal Visitor, besides publishing 

 a volume of original poems, the Hiliad, &c. 

 Poverty, however, overtook him; and his dis- 

 tresses, aided by intemperance, unsettled his intel- 

 lects, and compelled his relations to place him for 

 a while under personal restraint. His Song to 

 David, written in a madhouse, and partly with 

 charcoal, on the walls of his cell, bears a melan- 

 choly attestation to the strength of his mental 

 powers, even in their derangement. A temporary 

 recovery restored him to liberty for a few years, 

 which was terminated by a new confinement. 

 During the interval, he gave to the world his 

 translations of Horace's works, in prose and verse, 

 and of those of Phaedrus, in verse. He died of a 

 liver complaint, within the rules of the king's 

 bench prison, May 12, 1771. 



SME; an Egyptian goddess. See Hierogly- 

 phics. 



SMEATON, JOHN, an eminent civil engineer, 

 was born May 28, 1724, at Austhorpe, near Leeds. 

 The strength of his understanding and the origi- 

 nality of his genius appeared at an early age. His 

 father was an attorney; and being desirous to bring 

 up his son to the same profession, he carried him 

 to London in 1742, where he attended the courts 

 in Westminster hall ; but, after some time, finding 

 that the law was not suited to his disposition, he 

 wrote a strong memorial to his father on the sub- 

 ject, who immediately desired the young man to 

 follow the bent of his inclination. In 1751, he 

 began a course of experiments to try a machine of 

 his own invention, to measure a ship's way at sea, 

 and made two voyages, in company with doctor 

 Knight, to try the effect of it, and also for the 

 purpose of making experiments on a compass of 

 his own construction, which was rendered mag- 

 netical by doctor Knight's artificial magnet. In 

 1753, he was elected a fellow of the royal society ; 

 and a number of papers which he published in their 

 Transactions, show how highly he deserved the 

 honour. In 1755, the Eddystone light-house was 

 burnt down, and Mr Smeaton being recommended 

 to the proprietors of that building as an engineer 

 in every way calculated to rebuild it, he undertook 



the work, which was completed in 1759, much to 

 the satisfaction of the parties concerned. (See 

 Li;/ lit- House.) After this, Mr Smeaton was em- 

 ployed on many works of great public utility. He 

 made the river Calder navigable a work that 

 required talents of the very first order, owing to 

 the impetuous floods in that river; and planned 

 and attended to the execution of the great canal iu 

 Scotland, for conveying the trade of the country 

 either to the Atlantic or German ocean. Mr 

 Smeaton was appointed engineer to Ramsgate har- 

 bour, and brought it into a state of great utility by 

 various operations, of which he published an ac- 

 count in 1791. He constructed a variety of mills, 

 built a steam-engine at Austhorpe, and made a vast 

 number of experiments with it to ascertain the 

 power of Newcommen's engine (see Steam-Engine'), 

 which he improved and brought to a far greater 

 degree of perfection, both in its construction and 

 powers, than it had before. During many years of 

 his life, he was a frequent attendant upon parlia- 

 ment, his opinion on various works, begun or pro- 

 jected, being continually called for. He died in 

 1792. He was fond of science for its own sake, 

 and spent much of his leisure in the study of astro- 

 nomy; for which purpose, he fitted up an observa- 

 tory, in his house, furnished with curious contri- 

 vances of his own invention. He was a friend and 

 encourager of merit wherever he discerned it; and 

 many persons were indebted to him for important 

 assistance on entrance into life. Mr Smeaton was 

 the institutor, in 1771, of a society of civil engi- 

 neers, which was dissolved at his death, but after- 

 wards renewed. They published, in 1797, a 

 volume of his Reports. (For his labours in con- 

 structing bridges, mills, harbours, engines, &c., see 

 his Reports, in 3 vols., 4to.) Of his inventions 

 and improvements of philosophical instruments, an 

 idea may be formed from the list of his writings, 

 which is inserted in Button's Dictionary. 



SMELL. The sense of smell is that by means 

 of which we perceive the effluvia which arise 

 from bodies. The delicate mucous membrane, 

 which lines the internal parts of the nose, and 

 through which the olfactory nerve, descending 

 from the brain, is distributed, is the sole organ of 

 this sense. The air, passing through the nose, 

 brings the effluvia, or odoriferous parts of bodies, 

 into contact with the nerve ; the nerve transmits 

 the impression to the brain, by means of which it 

 is perceived by the mind. The moisture of the 

 membrane above named is essential to the perfec- 

 tion of the smell. This sense is intimately con- 

 nected with the respiration, and the whole life of 

 the animal, and is most nearly related to the sense 

 of taste; and many of the objects of the two 

 senses are the same. The fine odoriferous effluvia 

 of bodies are of incredible tenuity. Suppose, for 

 instance, what daily experience teaches us is pos- 

 sible, that, with a portion of oil of lavender only 

 one line square, we perfume a chamber eighteen 

 feet long, as many broad, and ten feet high, and 

 containing 3240 cubic feet, or 466,560 cubic lines, 

 and suppose, moreover, that in each cubic line there 

 are floating but four of the odoriferous particles, 

 we shall then find that one cubic line of oil may 

 be divided into 1,866,240 odoriferous particles. 

 If a piece of ambergris, weighing 100 grains, is left 

 upon a balance which is sensible to the smallest 

 part of a grain, in an open chamber, notwithstand- 

 ing there is free draught of air from without, the 

 chamber is filled with the odoriferous particles; 



