THE SMITHSONTAN INSTITUTION. 119 



EEYIEWS. 



An Account of the Smithsonian Institution, its Founder, Building, 

 Operations, etc., prepared from the Reports of Prof. Henry to the 

 Regents, and other authentic sources. By "William J. Ehees, 

 Chief Clerk of the Smithsonian Institution. Washington : 1863. 



Annual Reports of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion, showing the Operations^ Expenditures, and Condition of the 

 Institution for the years 1857-1862. 



On the 26th of May, 1786, James Louis (or Lewis) Macie, a 

 member of Pembroke College, Oxford, proceeded M.A. at that 

 University. In the following year he was elected a fellow of the 

 Koyal Society ; and in 1791 his first communication appeared in the 

 'Philosophical Transactions under the title : " Of some Chemical Ex- 

 periments on Tabasheer ; " a mineral substance extracted from the 

 pith of the bamboo, and in many respects nearly identical with 

 quartz, or common siliceous earth. According to a recent very 

 meagre biographical notice in the New America7i Cyclopaedia, his 

 mother was Mrs. Elizabeth Macie, heiress of the Hungerfords of 

 Audley, but this is probably a mere re-aflSjmation, in modified form 

 of his own statement, to which we shall presently refer. He was 

 at any rate a man of independent fortune, and, according to an 

 obituary notice in the Gentleman^ s Magjazine, " continued to enjoy 

 the property of the Macies," till his death ; when it was bequeathed 

 in a way calculated to perpetuate his name as the founder of an 

 institution of world-wide interest. But the name so perpetuated 

 was not that of James Louis Macie. In 1803 a second paper, by 

 the same author as that on the chemical experiments on Tabasheer 

 made its appearance, entitled " A Chemical Analysis of some Cala- 

 mites." But with the new century the inheritor of the Macie pro- 

 perty had seen fit to abandon that name ; and thenceforth, in philo- 

 sophical transactions and elsewhere, he chose to be known as James 

 Smithson. The only reasons which he appears to have assigned for 

 this change, are thus set forth in the autobiographic note, with 

 which his will is introduced : " I, James Smithson, son of Hugh, first 

 Duke of Northumberland, and Elizabeth, heiress of the Hungerfords 

 of Audley," or, as the Gentleman' s Magazine has it, " of Studley," 

 " and niece to Charles the proud Duke of Somerset." 



