xliv 



thus led, conducted him to a view on the much-contested question of the 

 connexion of the first three Gospels, which was first }3ublished in the * Dis- 

 sertation on the Life and Writings of St. Luke,' to which we have referred, 

 and which was afterwards worked out in greater detail in a separate * Dis- 

 sertation on the Origin and Connexion of the Gospels,' published in 1853. 

 On this subject Mr. Smith's view, which differs from any previously taken, 

 though not accepted to the same extent as his conclusions respecting the 

 voyage of St. Paul, has had many followers. He was engaged in the col- 

 lection of materials for a more extended dissertation on the same subject 

 when interrupted by his last illness. 



Mr. Smith was a member of many scientific societies — of the Royal 

 Society, the Geological Society, and the Royal Geographical Society of 

 London, and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He was president of the 

 Geological Society of Glasgow and of the Archseological Society, and was for 

 many years president of the Andersonian University in that city, and was un- 

 wearied in his exertions for its benefit, and for the improvement of its valu- 

 able museum. The date of his election into the Royal Society is Dec. 23, 

 1830. 



Mr. Smith enjoyed vigorous health till the spring of last year, when a 

 slight stroke of paralysis enfeebled his body, without affecting his mind. A 

 further attack towards the close of the year terminated in his death at Jordan 

 Hill on the 17th of January, 1867. 



Mr. Smith was married in 1809 to Mary Wilson, granddaughter of Dr. 

 Alexander Wilson, Professor of Astronomy in the University of Glasgow. 

 By her, who died in 1847, he had nine children, of whom three survive, 

 —Archibald Smith, Esq., F.R.S., late Fellow of Trinity College, Cam- 

 bridge, a member of the Chancery Bar, and two daughters. 



Sir James South, born in October 1785, was the eldest son of an emi- 

 nent Pharmaceutical Chemist resident in Southwark. Educated at a pri- 

 vate school, he acquired a fair knowledge of Greek and Latin, and such 

 elementary instruction in mathematics as was current in those days. On 

 leaving school he commenced the study of surgery, which he chose as a 

 profession ; combining with it that of chemistry, in which he was no ordi- 

 nary proficient. In due time he became a member of the College of Sur- 

 geons, and rose rapidly into extensive practice. Sir A. Cooper, whose 

 dresser he had been for a time, believed that if he had persevered he would 

 have been one of the most eminent surgeons of his time. But a different 

 fate was before him. While yet a boy his curiosity had been excited by a 

 singular erection on the roof of a house near his father's, and he contrived 

 to get acquainted with its owner. This was Huddart, an engineer of dis- 

 tinguished talent ; known, among other inventions, by machinery for 

 making ropes in which every fibre bears an equal strain. The structure 

 was a dome for containing the equatoreal which afterwards became famous 

 by his and Sir John Herschel's observations of double stars. The ideas 



