In the following year he discovered rhodium; and at about the same time Smithson Tennant added two more to the list - iridium and osmium; the former was so named from the changing tints of its oxides (ipcs, rainbow), and the latter from the odour of its oxide (ovµA, smell).
Of great importance is the chemical identity of the diamond, graphite and charcoal, a fact demonstrated in part by Lavoisier in 1773, Smithson Tennant in 1796, and by Sir George Steuart-Mackenzie (1780-1848), who showed that equal weights.
Experiments on the combustion of diamond were made by Smithson Tennant (1797) and Sir Humphry Davy (1816), with the object of proving that it is pure carbon; they showed that burnt in oxygen it yields exactly the same amount of carbon dioxide as that produced by burning the same weight of carbon.
Smithson, which became a leading case settling a rule of law; and young Scott, having lost his point in the inferior court, insisted on arguing it, on appeal, against the opinion of his clients, and carried it before Lord Thurlow, whose favourable consideration he won by his able argument.
The charitable institutions include the infirmary; the cholera hospital; the eye infirmary; the fever reception house; Sir Gabriel Wood's mariners' asylum, an Elizabethan building erected in 1851 for the accommodation of aged merchant seamen; and the Smithson poorhouse and lunatic asylum, built beyond the southern boundary in 1879.
