202 Proceedings of the Royal Society 
nerian Society of Edinburgh, and of the G-eological Society of 
London 
Mr Smith enjoyed good health till the spring of 1866, when he had 
an attack of paralysis, which did not affect his mind ; but a recent 
attack, at the close of the year, had a fatal termination, and he died 
on the 17th January 1867, in the eighty-fifth year of his age. 
Mr Smith was married, in 1809, to the granddaughter of Dr 
Wilson, Professor of Astronomy in Glasgow, and he left nine chil- 
dren, of whom only three survive, viz., Archibald Smith, Esq., 
F.R.S., a distinguished mathematician and barrister ; the wife of 
Walter Buchanan, Esq., M.P.; and the wife of the late William 
Hamilton, Esq. of Minard. 
Sir James South, an eminent astronomer, was born in London 
in 1785. He was the son of Mr South, a dispensing druggist in 
Southwark. His son, however, chose a higher branch of the medical 
profession, and became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. 
Although he practised medicine for some years in Southwark, 
the greater part of his time was spent in the study of practical 
astronomy. 
In his observatory in Blackman Street, Southwark, Mr South 
had a very fine five feet telescope, mounted equatorially, and with 
it, and a seven feet telescope equatorially mounted, he and Mr 
Herschel carried on, in the years 1821, 1822, and 1823, a series of 
most valuable observations on 3000 double and triple stars, mea- 
suring their apparent distances and positions, and comparing them 
with those of other astronomers. The large volume containing 
these remarkable observations was communicated to the Royal 
Society of London on the 15th January 1824, and is published as 
a part of their Transactions for that year. For the part which he 
took in this great work Sir James received the Copley Medal from 
the Society. 
In the vicinity of one of the great thoroughfares of the metropolis 
astronomical instruments require particular caution against tremors, 
and therefore Mr South removed to Camden Hill, Kensington, 
where he erected a fine observatory, and furnished it with a mag- 
nificent equatorial instrument, executed by Troughton, but owing 
to some imperfection in its construction that was never remedied, 
