Grecian Archipelago, increased the amount of emery used live or six fold, with a corresponding reduction in price. In many of the arts of life the free use of emery or corundum has become a necessity, but this free use of these articles would have been greatly retarded without a very material reduction in price.
While in the employment of the Sultan of Turkey, Prof. Smith investigated a great variety of Turkish resources, besides those directly within the purview of his appointment as mining engineer. His paper on the "Thermal Waters of Asia Minor" is one of extreme interest and great scientific value.
In 1851 Prof. Smith invented the inverted microscope, an important improvement; for, while it may do the work of any other microscope, there are very interesting fields of research which can be cultivated by no other instrument. Dr. Carpenter, in his work on "Physiology," bears strong testimony to its value.
After Prof. Smith's return from Turkey, his Alma Mater, the University of Virginia, elected him Professor of Chemistry, and, while discharging the duties of that chair, he, in connection with his able assistant, George J. Brush, at present one of the chief professors in the Sheffield School of Science, performed a much-needed work in revising the "Chemistry of American Minerals." A full account of these labors was given in the American Journal of Science, and subsequently in a valuable and interesting work containing the scientific researches of Prof. Smith, recently published by J. P. Morton & Co., in the city of Louisville.
After marrying, in Louisville, the daughter of the Hon. James Guthrie, Prof. Smith adopted that city as his home. He was elected, soon after settling in Louisville, to the chair of Chemistry in the Medical Department of the University of Louisville, a position which he held for a number of years. After resigning that chair, he took scientific charge of the gas-works of Louisville. He has a private laboratory where he spends several hours each day, and continues his devotion to original research.
Prof. Smith was one of the commissioners to the Paris Exposition of 1867, and made an able report on "The Progress and Condition of Several Departments of Industrial Chemistry." It is very nearly exhaustive of the important subjects to which it is devoted. Prof. Smith was again appointed commissioner to Vienna in 1873, and discharged his duties with his usual ability.
Prof. Smith's important original researches are no less than fifty in number, and his scientific reports are numerous, showing great activity and perseverance in cultivating the field he has chosen. Among the honors he has received is the highest that American science can confer, the presidency of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, to which he was elected in 1872.
