THE SCIENCE OF JAMES SMITHSON

An assessment of the scientific achievements of the man whose surprise, never-fully-understood benefaction to the government created the Smithsonian Institution, now “the largest museum complex in the world.”

Along the way offering a biography of James Smithson (1765-1859), about whose life scant evidence remains, Turner concentrates principally on the experimental contributions by this “accomplished analytical chemist.” During Smithson’s era, “natural philosophy,” the ordinary science of its time, was breaking apart into today’s more specialized disciplines of chemistry, geology, mineralogy, and botany, all of which Smithson helped move forward. A multifaceted figure educated in an older tradition, Smithson adjusted to the rapidly evolving world of deductive research and, via associations throughout his native Britain and Europe, significantly advanced a number of the emerging sciences. After rerunning Smithson’s experiments, a substantial feat in its own right, Turner, a historian of science and emeritus curator of physical sciences at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, convincingly refutes the charge that his subject was an “aristocratic science dabbler,” a charge largely based on his interest in practical applications, such as improving the process of coffee-making. While Turner’s experiment-by-experiment, article-by-article analysis can be tedious and principally of interest to historians of the sciences of Smithson’s era, the author makes a convincing case that his wide-ranging studies should be considered significant scientific achievements for their time. A never-married man, Smithson left his considerable fortune to his childless nephew. After that relative predeceased Smithson, upon his death, Smithson’s estate (worth a then-massive sum of $500,000), by direction of his will, was transferred to the U.S., a country he had never visited. By decision of Congress, his gift created the institution that bears his name, one dedicated grandly to “the increase and diffusion of knowledge.”

Solid insight into the work of a man whose gift undergirds one of the most important U.S. institutions of learning.