Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  \ 
April,  1904.  J 
James  Smithson. 
165 
had  the  happiness  of  saving  them  from  inevitable  destruction,  and 
arriving  with  them  at  Charleston,  opposite  Boston,  at  8  o'clock  last 
night ;  not,  however,  without  the  loss  of  a  great  many,  having  been 
under  an  incessant  fire  for  fifteen  miles.  The  rebels,  however,  suf- 
fered much  more  than  the  king's  troops." 
In  1782,  at  the  age  of  seventeen,  Smithson  matriculated  at  Pem- 
broke College,  Oxford.  Not  much  is  known  about  his  student  days, 
except  that  he  was  noted  for  diligence  and  good  scholarship,  and 
that  he  was  deeply  interested  in  chemistry  and  mineralogy,  in  which 
studies  he  was  the  best  student  in  his  class.  In  1784,  he  made  a 
geological  tour  through  Oban,  Staffa  and  the  western  isles,  with  De 
St.  Fond,  "  the  celebrated  philosopher,"  and  the  Italian  count, 
Andrioni,  in  which  they  studied  mining  and  manufacturing  pro- 
cesses. Most  of  his  vacations  were  devoted  to  excursions  for  collect- 
ing minerals  and  ores,  which  it  was  his  favorite  occupation  to 
analyze. 
He  graduated  at  Pembroke  College  with  the  degree  of  Master  of 
Arts  on  May  26,  1786.  On  April  27,  1787,  he  was  admitted  as  a 
Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society,  before  which,  in  1 791,  he  read  his  first 
scientific  paper,  entitled  "  An  Account  of  Some  Chemical  Experi- 
ments on  Tabasheer." 
Not  much  is  known  of  Smithson's  after-career.  In  his  later  days, 
he  resided  in  Paris,  and  was  the  victim  of  ill  health.  That  he 
devoted  much  time  to  chemical  investigations  is  shown  by  the 
published  papers  of  which  he  was  the  author.  His  published  writ- 
ings were  twenty-seven  in  number,  of  which  eight  were  published  in 
the  Philosophical  Transactions  of  the  Royal  Society  between  1791 
and  1807  ;  one  in  the  Philosophical  Magazine  in  1807  ;  and  eighteen 
in  Thomsons  Annals  of  Philosophy,  between  1819  ano-  1825. 
Prof.  Frank  W.  Clarke,  chief  chemist  of  the  United  States  Geo- 
logical Survey,  has  placed  the  following  estimate  on  these  papers : 
"The  most  notable  feature  of  Smithson's  writings,  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  modern  analytical  chemist,  is  in  the  success  obtained 
with  the  most  primitive  and  unsatisfactory  appliances.  In  Smith- 
son's  day,  chemical  apparatus  was  undeveloped,  and  instruments 
were  improvised  from  such  materials  as  lay  readiest  to  hand.  With 
such  instruments,  and  with  crude  reagents,  Smithson  obtained 
analytical  results  of  the  most  creditable  character,  and  enlarged  our 
knowledge  of  many  mineral  species.    In  his  time,  the  native  carbon- 
