to continue his legal studies; but upon representing strongly to his father his repugnance to the law and his preference for mechanical science, he was allowed to become a philosophical instrument maker. In 1750 he established himself in business on his own account. He soon began to send scientific papers to the Royal Society, and continued to do so till near the end of his life. His researches were marked by skill and perseverance in experimental inquiry, by sound judgment in theorizing, and by the practical utility of their results. Amongst them may be specified his "Experimental Inquiry concerning the natural power of Wind and Water to Drive Mills," to which the Royal Society awarded a gold medal in 1759; his paper on "Mechanical Power," read in 1776; and that on "Collision," read in 1782: the last two in particular deserve the careful study of all who desire to form clear and exact ideas on the action of moving forces. They were reprinted in Tredgold's collection of hydraulic tracts. In 1754 he travelled in Holland to improve his knowledge of hydraulic engineering. His first connection with the famous Edystone lighthouse took place in 1756 The Edystone rock stands in the English channel, about fifteen miles south of Plymouth; a small part only of its summit rises above the level of high water, and in former times it was a cause of fearful danger and loss to shipping. In 1696 an ingenious projector, Henry Winstanley, undertook to build a lighthouse on it; he erected a fantastic edifice of wood, which was lighted up in 1698, and stood, with great benefit to navigation, for five years. In November, 1703, Winstanley paid his lighthouse a visit; on the 26th of that month a tremendous storm arose; and on the morning of the 27th, the lighthouse, together with its keepers and its architect, had disappeared totally and for ever. A more skilful and successful attempt was made in 1706 by John Rudyerd, who built a well-designed and strongly constructed wooden lighthouse, which stood till the 2nd of December, 1755, when it was accidentally burned. The company of lessees who farmed the light-dues applied to the earl of Macclesfield, then president of the Royal Society, for his advice as to how they should proceed; and by his recommendation they consulted Smeaton, who first inspected the site in March, 1756. The only example then existing of a lighthouse built on a site exposed to the full force of the ocean waves was the celebrated Tour de Cordouan, and in that case the tower was screened from the waves by being inclosed within a circular sea-wall. The peak of the Edystone rock was too narrow a base to admit of the use of that mode of protection; Smeaton therefore determined to make the masonry of the lighthouse tower itself strong and stable enough to bear the shock of the waves; and to carry out that purpose he devised a wholly original design, and a new method of building. The first year of the undertaking was spent in making plans and models, and preparing the materials and site; the first stone was laid on Sunday the 12th of June, 1757. The lantern was lighted up on the 16th of October of the same year. The Edystone lighthouse, one of the few really original works of engineering, has been the model for all subsequent stone lighthouses which have been erected on similar sites; some of them have been of greater dimensions, and some have been improved in the details of their construction, but the general principle has been the same in all. Smeaton now became the acknowledged head of the engineering profession in Britain; he planned and executed many works of the greatest magnitude and importance, and was consulted upon many others. Amongst the bridges which he designed may be specified those of Perth, Banff, and Coldstream; amongst harbours, those of St. Ives and Ramsgate, and many harbours in Scotland. It is believed that the term "civil engineer" was first brought into use by Smeaton to distinguish his peculiar profession from that of the military engineer. His skill in millwork and machinery was not less than in construction; he brought the atmospheric steam-engine to the highest efficiency of which it was capable. In his domestic and social character he was highly amiable. He founded a series of meetings of engineers, partly for professional discussion, partly for convivial enjoyment, which were carried on for many years. Those meetings ceased after his death, but they may be regarded as the origin of two professional societies—the Institution of Civil Engineers, and the Smeatonian Society.—(See Smeaton's Reports; Smiles' Lives of the Engineers.)—W. J. M. R.
SMELLIE, William, M.D., a celebrated obstetrician of the last century, was born in Scotland. It appears from the preface to the second volume of his great work on midwifery that between the years 1722 and 1739 he practised in the country. He afterwards removed to London, where he established himself as a teacher and practitioner of midwifery. He tells us that during ten years' residence in London he gave upwards of two hundred and eighty courses of lectures on midwifery, for the instruction of more than nine hundred pupils, exclusive of female students; and that besides difficult cases in which his assistance was sought, and private patients, one thousand one hundred and fifty poor women were attended by his pupils under his direction. In 1752 Smellie published his lectures under the title of "A Treatise on Midwifery." Two years afterwards appeared a second volume of cases illustrating the former one. A third volume of cases of preternatural delivery was published after Smellie's death. In 1754 he also brought out a folio of obstetric plates. Some years before his death he retired to his native country, and busied himself with the arrangement of his papers for publication. He died at his own house, near Lanark, in 1763. Dr. Smellie was a man of great mechanical genius, as is proved by his improvements in the instruments used in his art. He was also an original and sagacious observer. His work still holds its place amongst the most valued of British medical classics. It was republished entire in three volumes in 1779, and has been translated into several languages.—F. C. W.
SMELLIE, William, an eminent Scottish naturalist and miscellaneous writer, was born in Edinburgh about the year 1740. He was apprenticed at an early age to a printer, but devoted his leisure to study, and even contrived to attend a regular course of the university classes. He became such a proficient both in printing and in classical knowledge, that an edition of Terence, wholly set up and corrected by himself, was declared by Harwood, the philologist, to be "an immaculate edition." He co-operated with a number of young men in establishing the literary and scientific club, called the Newtonian Society, which included among its members the celebrated President Blair, Drs. Hunter, Blacklock, Buchan, Adam, and other eminent men. At a later period he became secretary to a similar society, called the Newtonian Club, which comprised Dugald Stewart, Drs. Duncan, Gregory, and the other professors of the college. Mr. Smellie had a strong predilection for the study of botany and other kindred pursuits, and wrote a number of treatises on these branches of science, which were afterwards published in his "Philosophy of Natural History." He commenced business for himself in 1765, in conjunction with a partner; and during the succeeding thirty years printed the works of Dr. Robertson, Gilbert Stuart, Robert Ferguson, Hugo Arnot, Robert Burns, Adam Smith, Lord Kames, and many more of the Scottish literati, all of whom were his personal friends. He was the projector of the Encyclopædia Britannica; and had the entire management of the first edition of that celebrated work, published in 1771. In conjunction with Gilbert Stuart, he commenced in 1773 the Edinburgh Magazine and Review, which was brought to a close after the publication of forty-seven numbers. He was one of the first members, and ultimately became the secretary, of the Scottish Antiquarian Society, established in 1780. He originated the scheme for a statistical account of Scotland, which was afterwards carried out by Sir John Sinclair. He published in 1780 a translation of Buffon's Natural History, made by himself; besides a large number of miscellaneous essays upon a variety of subjects, political, poetical, theological, and scientific. Mr. Smellie died in 1795.—J. T.
SMIEDEL or SCHMEIDEL, Ulrich, a German traveller, was a native of Straubingen. He sailed in company with a large number of his countrymen to South America, and was one of the founders of the town of Buenos Ayres. He afterwards explored with some Spaniards the river Paraguay, noted the characteristics and numbers of the aborigines dwelling upon its banks, and thence penetrated into Peru. He is said to have been the first traveller after Orellana who describes the Amazons southward of the Maranhon. A book containing full particulars of Smiedel's travels and discoveries was published at Nuremberg in 1554.—F.
SMIRKE, Robert, an English painter, born in 1751; died in 1845. He was at first merely a painter of coach-panels, but subsequently became famous as a genre painter. His favourite author was Cervantes, whose great work he illustrated with much spirit and success. Smirke was the father of the present Sir Robert and Mr. Sydney Smirke, the well-known architects.
SMITH, Adam, the author of the "Wealth of Nations" and the "Theory of Moral Sentiments," was born in 1723 at Kirk-
