J. P. Phillips University of Louisville Louisville, Kentucky
J.
J. Lawrence Smith, Pioneer of American Analytical Chemistry
Lawrence Smith (1818-1883) was one of the few internationally known American chemists of the nineteenth century. He specialized in mineralogy and silicate analysis; he also possessed a meteorite collection so large and so carefully analyzed that he has every right to be considered a pioneer of space science as well. Indeed, he sold his collection to Harvard just before his death and his widow used the money to establish a medal and award bearing his name. These are still given from time to time by the National Academy of Sciences for outstanding research on meteorites. His method for the determination of the alkali metals in silicates remained the best for this most difficult of gravimetric procedures for nearly 100 years after its publication in 1853. Smith was also a pioneer in industrial chemistry in America and an early president of both the American Chemical Society (1877) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1874). ~ x c e p tfor a brief report (1) based on certain biographical data recorded by three of Smith's professional friends (including Benjamin Siliman. Jr.) in a preface to a posthumously published collection of his research papers (8), his career has been little studied in modern times. He left no children, he used neither assistants nor research students, and he possessed great wealthnone of these factors is conducive to the perpetuation of his reputation. Indeed, the biographical notes on him in the Jubilee issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society are both scanty and rather unflsttering (3). Almost as interesting as his purely scientific endeavors were his talents as a capitalist in chemistrybased ventures. He was reputed to have made a fortune through the discovery of emery mines in Turkey in the 1840's; in the late 1850's he organized (in partnership with Dr. Squibb a t first) a factory for the production of pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals; and after the Civil War he was scientific manager and president of the Louisville Gas Works. His touching joy and relief a t the discovery of the Bunsen burner, as mentioned by Willard and Diehl (4), may not have been without a commercial taint. Smith's l i e history records a number of false starts in his search for a proper career for an aristocratic Sontherner. He was a native of South Carolina and received his education first a t Charleston College and then a t the University of Virginia. He first intended to become a civil engineer and served briefly in that capacity on a railroad project before deciding instead to become a doctor. He graduated from the Medical College of Charleston and then spent three years studying medicine, chemistry, and geology in France and Germany. His first published paper was an investigation of the 390
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composition of spermaceti undertaken a t the suggestion of Liebig and published in Liebig's journal in 1842 (6). This was the first research paper in organic chemistry by an American; Smith was the lirst of Liebig's few American students (6). On returning to Charleston in 1844, Smith gave lectures on toxicology (another interest that he had developed in his foreign tour), organized a medical journal, became assayer for the state of South Carolina, and studied (in the true spirit of Liebig) the fertilizer potential of South Carolina phosphates in the growth of cotton. Through these latter investigations he qualified as an expert to be sent to Turkey to advise that government on growing cotton in Asia Minor, but instead, he became a mining engineer for the Turks for the period 1847-50. His discoveries of emery mines were presumably much appreciated; he also collected minerals and analyzed numerous thermal waters throughout Asia Minor. His opinions of the Turks as expressed in letters to his friend Benjamin Silliman, Jr., were very low, and he remarked that his mineral discoveries were casting pearls before swine. After his return from Turkey he gave lectures in chemistry in New Orleans until 1852. He then became professor of chemistry a t the University of Virginia for two years and in 1854 succeeded Benjamin Siliman, Jr., as professor of chemistry a t the University of Louisville Medical School. In 1856 he constructed a factory for the production of fine chemicals, bringing E. R. Squibb (who later founded a firm for the production of medical ether and drugs) from New York into a brief partnership that lasted only two years. Upon the outbreak of the Civil War, Smith abandoned his business and according to one report (7) spent the war years in foreign travel because he was a Southern sympathizer. In 1866 he formally resigned his medical school professorship and, except for a business connection with the Louisville Gas Works that he served as chief chemist and president, occupied himself with private researches in his home laboratory for the rest of his lie. He traveled extensively and several times represented the United States a t European scientificexpositions. The greatest number of his scientific works were devoted to the composition of meteorites, which he collected from the 1850's until nearly the end of his lie. One of his most interesting discoveries was an apparent organic compound in the Orgueil meteorite for which he gives analytical data indicating a sulfurcontaining hydrocarbon. The rediscovery of organic matter in this very meteorite in the last few years has produced a rash of publications concerning its significance as evidence for extraterrestrial life (S),but Smith did not for a moment accept any such conjectme, a
wise opinion in view of the recent evidence that the organic matter may have been fraudulently introduced. His own view on the origin of meteorities was that volcanic action on the moon in eons past had spewed rocks into space and that this debris intersected the earth's orbit occasionally. In analytical chemistry, his most important accomplishment was the discovery that alkali metals could be quantitatively separated from silicates through a technically difficult and tedious fusion with calcium carbonate and ammonium chloride, the J. Lawrence Smith method. His interests in minerals led him to produce in 1853 a complete reexamination of American minerals on the basis of their analyses. He also discovered a few new minerals, includ'mg one he named Liebigite in honor of his German teacher. His claims to have discovered a new element of the rare earth group in the 1870's turned out to he erroneous. As devout Baptists, Smith and his wife founded a Baptist orphanage and endowed the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary with considerable sums; Mrs. Smith provided the money to build the library of that institution. As a result, many of Smith's instruments and medals and mineral collections were on display a t
the Seminary a t least until the late 1920's. They included an interesting form of inverted microscope that he had invented for the examination of minerals. When the Seminary was moved to a new site in Louisville, the collection was removed from the museum and has largely disappeared. My own efforts to locate it turned up only three items, all housed in storage in the attic of the new Seminary library: a balance of fine construction but with the beam missing; two cases of nondescript minerals, one without any guide to its contents; and a collection of a few letters. Literature Cited SAMPEY, J. R., J. CBEM.EDUC., 5,123(1928). (2) MARVIN, J. B., editor, "Original Researches in Mineralogy and Chemistry by J. Lawrence Smith," John P. Morton (1)
Co., Louisville, 1884.
(3) SMITH, E. F., J . Am. Chem. Soe G o l d a Jubilee Issue, 48, 71 (1926). (4) W I L ~H., H.,
AND DIEHI,,H., "Advanced Quantitative Analysis," D. Van Nostrand, New York, 1943, p. 266
(footnote).
(5) SMITH, J. L., Ann. Chem., 42,241 (1842). (6) VANKLOOSTER, H. S., J. CBEM.EDuc., 33,493 (1956).
(7) JOHNSTON, J. S., editor, "Memoria1 History of Louisville," (8)
Am. Biog. Publishing Co., Chicago, 1896, vol. 11, p. 54. ANDERS,E.,ETAL., Science, 146,1157(1964).
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