CHEMISTRY 



BY MARCUS BENJAMIN 



Fellow of the Chemical Society of London 



James Smithson was an analytical chemist 

 of no mean ability has been shown elsewhere 

 in this volume, but it is eminently proper to 

 emphasize that fact in connection with this 

 summary of chemistry, by the repetition of the 

 statements that while a student in Oxford he had " the repu- 

 tation of excelling all other resident members of the Univer- 

 sity in the knowledge of chemistry," and that later he ac- 

 quired the well-deserved fame of being one of the " most ex- 

 pert chemists in elegant analysis." 



In the preliminary legislation that resulted in the estab- 

 lishment of the Smithsonian Institution the practice of chem- 

 istry by James Smithson seems to have been borne in mind, 

 for not only in the act to establish the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion, but also in the subsequent report of the organizing com- 

 mittee "a chemical laboratory" was provided for. 



Later, when Professor Henry had been given the direction 

 of the Institution, he refers in his " Program of Organization " 

 to the "chemical analysis of soil and plants" as a means by 

 which " to increase knowledge," and in his first report dis- 

 tinctly avows his appreciation of the value of chemistry in the 



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