

SMITH. 107 



having died in 1792. Rumford's death took place at Auteuil, on 

 the 21st of August, 1814, in the sixty-second year of his age. IIin 

 only daughter by his first wife inherited the title of Countess of 

 Bumfurd, with the continuation of her father's Bavarian pension. 

 She married Cuvier the naturalist, and survived until a few years 

 ago, forming a link between the age of Lavoisier and those of the 

 middle of the nineteenth century. Chambers' Miscellany, No. 161. 

 Encyclopaedia Britannica, eighth edition. Voyage de trois mois en 

 Angleterre, en Ecosse, <&c. } par Marc-Auguste Pictet, F.R.S., dec. 

 Geneva, 1802. 



DANIEL RUTHERFORD, M.D. 



Born November 3, 1749. Died November 15, 1819. 



Daniel Rutherford was born at Edinburgh and educated at the 

 University of his native city. He took his degree of M.D. in 1772, 

 and in the Thesis which he published upon this occasion, entitled 

 * De Acre Fixo, 1 he pointed out for the first time a new gaseous 

 substance, since distinguished by the name of Azote or Nitrogen. 

 On the 6th of May, 1777, he was admitted a Fellow of the Royal 

 College of Physicians, and in a paper on Nitre, read before the 

 Philosophical Society in 1778, he described, under the name of Vital 

 Air, what is now called Oxygen gas. 



On the death of Dr. John Hope in 1786, Rutherford was elected 

 Professor of Botany and Keeper of the Botanical Gardens at Edin- 

 burgh, a duty which he discharged until the time of his death, in 

 1819, at the age of seventy. Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, vol. 3. 

 May 1820. 



WILLIAM SMITH, LL.D. 



Born March 23, 1769. Died August 28, 1839. 



William Smith, the ' Father of English Geology,' was born at 

 Churchill, a village in Oxfordshire. His father died when he was 

 eight years old, and his mother marrying again, William was brought 

 up under the care of his uncle, to part of whose property he was 

 heir. From this kinsman, who had little sympathy with his nephew's 



