Chap. III.] ' ELECTRO-MET ALLUEGY ' PUBLISHED. 19 



the time this work was written, now thirty- seven years ago, it 

 was the only important contribution and the only complete 

 exposition of the subject embraced therein. The very name of 

 the science, electro-metallurgy, owes its name to him. The 

 late Prince Consort graciously allowed the book to be dedicated 

 to him. In the Appendix, No. Vill., will be found the history of 

 this science, as it is given in every edition of ' Electro-Metallurgy,' 

 as well as a brief view of the various subjects treated of in the 

 work itself. It suffices, therefore, here to enumerate some of the 

 more important researches which Mr. Smee made in the science 

 of electro-metallurgy. The important ones, therefore, were : — 



1. " The laws regulating the reduction of all metals in different 

 states." By these laws, gold, silver, platinum, palladium, copper, 

 iron, and almost every other metal, can be thrown down in three 

 states ; namely, as a black powder, as a crystalline deposit, or as 

 a flexible plate. 



It is these laws (he says) -wliich raise the isolated facts hitherto 

 known as the electrotype into a science. The hundreds of experiments (he 

 adds), I may even say the thousands, that have been tried to elucidate these 

 laws, could never have heen executed had I not first discovered my galvanic 

 battery ; for its simplicity alone enabled me, without any assistance, to 

 undergo the laborious undertaking. 



2. The processes for platinating and palladiating, until de- 

 scribed in his ' Electro-Metallurgy,' were facts altogether un- 

 known to science ; for the reduction of those metals into any other 

 state than that of the black powder had hitherto been always 

 considered impossible. By these processes, reliefs and intaglios 

 in gold and nearly every other metal were enabled to be executed. 



3. To Mr. Smee we are also indebted for being the first to 

 discover the means by which perfect reverses of plaster could be 

 obtained : for it may seem singular that although every writer on 

 the subject had previously given directions for making moulds of 

 plaster casts in metal, yet before Smee's investigations no perfect 

 reverse of plaster had been obtained. He soon found out that the 

 reason of the faijures lay in the extreme porosity of the plaster, 

 and he removed; the difficulty by rendering the plaster non- 

 absorbent. In speaking of this matter he says :— ^ 



The success of this department of my experiments has amply repaid 

 me for my labours and expense ; for there is not a town in England that I 

 have happened to visit, and scarcely a street of this metropolis, where pre- 

 pared plasters are not exposed to view for the purpose of alluring persons 

 to follow the delightful recreation by the practice of electro-metallurgy. 



4 He also extended the use of white wax, bees'- wax, and resin. 



c 2 



