A Chemical Analysis of Some Calamines

James Smithson (1765-1829)
"A chemical analysis of some calamines." From the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, [vol. 93]
London: Printed by W. Bulmer, 1803.
From the Smithson Library Collection
James Louis Macie Smithson was a gentleman scientist, educated at Oxford and interested in chemistry, mineralogy, and geology. His 27 scientific papers, published in the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions and Thomson’s Annals of Philosophy, include this one on the mineral (a form of zinc carbonate) that was later named "smithsonite" in his honor. Smithson bequeathed $550,000 in gold as well as his library and personal effects to the United States, but many items were lost in a devastating fire in 1865. Approximately 115 titles survived, including several copies of this corrected offprint, and they are now in the Smithsonian Libraries Special Collections.