1 8 The Smithsonian Institution 



health, whose life, save a few hours given to repose, was 

 regularly divided between the most interesting scientific re- 

 searches and gaming. It was a source of great regret to me 

 that this learned experimentalist should devote the half of 

 so valuable a life to a course so little in harmony with an intel- 

 lect whose wonderful powers called forth the admiration of the 

 world around him. Unfortunately there occurred fluctuations 

 of loss and gain, momentarily balancing each other, which led 

 him to conclude that the advantages enjoyed by the bank 

 were neither so assured nor considerable as to preclude his 

 winning largely through a run of luck. The analytical for- 

 mulas of probabilities offering a radical means, the only one 

 perhaps of dissipating this illusion, I proposed, the number 

 of the games and the stakes being given, to determine in ad- 

 vance, in my study, the amount, not merely of the loss of a 

 day, nor that of a week, but of each quarter. The calculation 

 was found so regularly to agree with the corresponding dim- 

 inution of the bank-notes in the foreigner's pocketbook that 

 a doubt could no longer be entertained." 



I owe to Doctor B. A. Gould the interesting statement that 

 Arago was not merely an acquaintance, but an intimate friend 

 of Smithson, and that Arago personally told him that " the 

 distinguished foreigner " in question was Smithson himself, 

 and added that Smithson resolved, not to absolutely discon- 

 tinue play (in which he found the only stimulus which could 

 make him forget his physical suffering), but to do so with a 

 care that the expenditure for this purpose was a definite one, 

 and within his means. 



We see him next entering the confines of old age, approach- 

 ing the task (with such enfeebled health, a solemn one) of 

 making his last will, and looking back upon a life which his 

 circumstances have made lonely, which has been uncheered by 

 domestic affection, and which, though filled with honorable 

 activities, has not brought the fame to which he once aspired 



