b JAMES SMITHSON AND HIS BEQUEST. 



milk ; lay in the barn, firmly expecting to stay there for a week, without 

 even bread." 



^''Sunday the 2Qth. — The man of the island came at five or six o'clock 

 in the morning to tell us that the wind was dropped, and that it was a 

 good day. Set off in the small boat, which took water so fast that my 

 servant was obliged to bail constantly — the sail, an old plaid — the ropes, 

 old garters." 



On the 29th, the tourists are at Oban, where a little circumstance is 

 noted, which significantly marks the zeal and activity of the collector 

 of minerals and fossils, and the light in which devotion to geology is 

 sometimes viewed. 



^^Septemher 29.— This day packed up my fossils in a barrel, and paid 2s. 

 6d. for their going by water to Edinburgh. Mr. Stevenson charged hali 

 a crown a night for my rooms, because I had brought ^stones and dirt,^ 

 as he said into it." 



A month later he visited Northwich. 



^^ October 28. — \Vent to visit one of the salt mines, in which they told 

 me there were two kinds of salt. They let me down in a bucket, in which 

 I only put one foot, and I had a miner with me. I think tlie first shaft 

 was about tliirty yards, at tlio bottom of which was a pool of water, but 

 on one side there was a horizontal opening, from whicli sunk a second 

 shaft, which went to the bottom of the pit, and the man let us down in 

 a bucket smaller than the first."* 



These incidents indipate the character of Smithson as a scientific en- 

 thusiast, not easily deterred by the fear of personal inconvenience from 

 the pursuit of his favorite object. 



Much of his life was passed on the Continent, in Berlin, Paris, Rome, 

 Florence, and Geneva, enjoying everywhere the frieiulship and respect 

 of the leading men of science,! and always devoting himself to the study 

 of physical phenomena. Distinguished authors, as Gay-Lussac, Marcet, 

 Hatiy, Berzelius, and Cordier, presented him with their scientific papers | 

 as soon as published, and he eujoj'ed intimate association and corre- 

 spondence with Davy, Gilbert, Arago, Biot, Klaproth, Black, and 

 others. § 



As a chemist. Sir Davies Gilbert, President of the Royal Society, pro- 

 nounced Smithson to be the rival of WoUaston, of whomMagendie said, 

 " his hearing was so fine he might have been thought to be blind, and his 

 sight so piercing he might have been supposed to be deaf." It is related 

 of him that he made a galvanic battery in a thimble, and a platinum wire- 

 much finer than any hair. 



* Smithsonian AlinceU. Coll, No. 327, p. 140. . 



tGaltou, in speaking of Erasnma Darwin, reraarku: " lie was held in very highi 

 esteem by his scientific friends, including such celebrities as Priestley and James Watt, 

 and it is by a man's position among his contemporaries and competitors that his work 

 may most justly be appraised." Francis Galton, English Men of Science.. 



tSee Appendix. — Note 5. 



$See Appendix — Note 6. 



