12 MEMOIE OF ALFEED SMEE. [Chap. II. 



besides splints and surgery and photogenic drawings. He was 

 at work on the ' Contractility of Tissues,' which was intended to 

 be exemplified by many hundred experiments. He was at work 

 on ' Melanosis,' which was designed for a paper, but which was 

 abandoned before its completion for other more weighty subjects. 

 He was experimenting on inks. He was experimenting on a 

 waterproofing liquid. He was besides making his researches on 

 his important paper on the ' Ferrosesquicyanuret of Potassium ; ' 

 he was devising his " battery/' and was besides carrying on other 

 experiments relating to electro-metallurgy. 



By the account-book of Alfred Smee, we find that up to the 

 time he left school, when he was sixteen years old, he only 

 received ninepence a week for pocket-money. This money 

 he carefully husbanded, and expended on retorts and other ne- 

 cessaries for chemical experiments. Even after he became a 

 medical student he had not more than £30 a year, which had 

 to suffice for the expenses of his wardrobe, for obtaining objects 

 for dissecting, and for the various other objects required to 

 carry on his numerous researches. I have heard my father say 

 how pinched he was in early life for money, and what a benefit 

 it would have been to him throughout his life had he, at the 

 commencement of his career, had more money at his disposal. 

 But he made the most of his small means. His microscope was 

 given to him, but it was a very inferior one. With a five- 

 pound note, given to him by his father on gaining one of the 

 prizes, he procured for himself a ^-inch lens, which he had long 

 coveted to possess. I must here exonerate my grandfather's 

 memory from the supposition that he was either a mean man, or 

 an unnatural father. On the contrary, he was very fond of his 

 children, and particularly proud of his son Alfred. But my grand- 

 father had been brought up in the school of adversity. He had 

 seen his father's fortune go from him ; he had lived in turbulent 

 times, when the revolution of France had filled men's minds with 

 horror ; he had, as a young man, lived in the society of French 

 noble refugees, amongst whom was an archbishop who had 

 escaped to this country for protection against the oppressions 

 of their own countrymen : thus my grandfather having from his 

 youth witnessed the instability of fortune, it had thereby caused 

 him to become in middle age more prudent, more cautious in 

 money matters than it was his natural disposition to be. 



The room in which he carried on his numerous experiments 

 — where all the experiments for ' Electro-Metallurgy ' were worked 



