316 
OBITUARY NOTICES. 
series of tests to show the capabilities of American manu¬ 
factories to provide tool steel of the highest quality. 
The University of Pennsylvania tendered him the chair 
of dynamic engineering in that institution in 1874, but his 
preference was to follow out his professional career in the 
naval service, in which he had already attained the grade of 
Chief Engineer. 
He was one of the first naval engineers of any nation to 
devise means for standardizing engineering instruments of 
precision, and rendered beneficial service as a member of 
the board of officers that commenced, in 1890, a systematic 
plan for reorganizing the methods of administration of the 
navy yards of the United States; but probably the most es¬ 
teemed achievement of Chief Engineer Smith was his work 
concerning the ventilation of war ships, in relation to which 
he was the first to propose in detail the system, which is now 
universally adopted, of exhausting the air from the individ¬ 
ual compartments of the ship. 
Although he was transferred to the retired list of the 
Navy in 1896, in pursuance of the statutes requiring that 
officers of the Navy should be retired upon reaching the 
age of 62 years, he performed excellent service for the Navy 
and the country during the Spanish war, and, by his ex¬ 
traordinary exertions at an advanced age, brought on a 
lingering sickness, which resulted in death on the 27th of 
May, 1903. 
G. W. Littlehales. 
