8 JAMES SMITHSON AND HIS BEQUEST. 



In one of his essays, he divides the sources of knowledge into, Ist, 

 observation; 2d, reasoning; 3d, information; 4th, conjecture. In all 

 his researches he began the process of acquisition by observing. 



One of his sentiments has been adopted as the motto on the publica- 

 tions of the Smithsonian Institution; viz: ^^ Every man is a valuable 

 member of society, who, by his observations, researches, and experiments, 

 procures Icnoicledge for menP 



In a critical notice of Davy's Elements of Oiicmical Pliil()so|)liy in the 

 Quarterly Review for 1812, the writer speaking of recent advances in 

 chemistry, and especially in the establishment and extension of the law 

 of definite proportions, remarks : " For these facts the science is princi- 

 pally indebted, after Mr. Higgins, to Dalton, Gay-Lussac, Smithson, and 

 Wollaston."* 



The mineral species '■'■ Smithsonite,^^ a carbonate of zinc, was discovered 

 and analyzed by him, among some ores from Somersetshire and Der- 

 byshire, England. The name, Smithsonite, appears to have been con- 

 ferred on it by the great French mineralogist lieudant. 



It is interesting to notice the number and variety of specimens from 

 the v^egetable kingdom that Smithson subjected to analysis. They in- 

 clude the violet, red rose, red clover, daisy, blue liyacinth, hollyhock, 

 lavend(!r,arti(;hoke, scarlet geranium, red (;abbage, radish, ])oppy, i)luin, 

 pomegranate, mulberry, cherry, currant, buckthorn berries, elder and 

 privet berries. He also examined the coloring matter of animal greens. 



It is perhaps worthy of note that his first i)aper related to an article 

 of importan(;e in the materia medica, and his last to a matter of prac- 

 tical value to artists. lie by no means confined his attention to abstract 

 science, but contributed knowledge of improved methods of constructing 

 lamps, and of making tea and coffee. That such pr.ictical questions 

 might be considered of little importance by nuMi of sci(Mice he seems to 

 acknowledge by the remarks he makes in one of his papers. 



"It is to be regretted," he observes, "that those Avho cultivate 

 science frequently withhold improvements in their apparatus and pro- 

 cesses, from which they themselves derive advantage, owing to their not 

 deeming them of snflicient magnitu<le lor publication. When the sole 

 view is to furtlier a pursuit of whose imi)ortance to mankind a convic- 

 tion exists, all that can should be imparted, however small may appear 

 the merit which attaches to it." t 



A secretary of the French Academy deemed it his duty to otier an 

 excuse for having given a detailed account of certain researches of 

 Leibnitz, Avliich had not required great eflbrts of the intellect. "We 

 ought," says he, "to be very much obliged to a man such as he is, ^vhen 

 he condescends, for the public good, to do sonuithing whicli does not 

 partake of genius." Arago remarked in his eulogy on Fourier, " I can- 

 not conceive the ground of such scruples ; in the present day the sciences 



• Quarterly Review, 1812, vol. viii, p. 77, 



♦ Some improvements of lamps. Smithsonian Miacell. Coll. No. 327, p. 76. 



