Some account of the late Smithson Tennant, Esq., F.R.S., Professor of Chemistry in the University of Cambridge / [John Whishaw].

John Whishaw

Date:: 1815

Credit: Some account of the late Smithson Tennant, Esq., F.R.S., Professor of Chemistry in the University of Cambridge / [John Whishaw]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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for the payment of his expenses were at first regularly made; but subsequently, in consequence of some accident or omission, were dis¬ continued. After waiting for some time, the College tutors, seeing no prospect of obtaining the money from the Russian Government, thought themselves justified in taking legal measures against the party himself. Mr. Tennant, struck with the helpless situation of this unfortunate foreigner, without friends or resources, remon¬ strated for some time against the harshness of their proceedings, but without effect; and the young man was arrested. Mr. T. immediately took the proper steps to procure his release, and ad¬ vanced him the means of support till he was enabled to return to Russia, where he was aftemards appointed a Professor in the Impe¬ rial Academv at Cronstadt. Having entered somewhat late at Cambridge, and being des¬ tined for the medical profession, Mr. Tennant did not pay any great attention to the regular course of academical reading, or de¬ vote much of his time to the study of mathematics. He acquired, however, a general knowledge of the elementary parts of that science, and made himself master of the most important proposi¬ tions in Newton’s Principia. Rut his attention at this period was principally directed to chemistry and botany ; and it may be recorded as an instance of his early progress in the former science, that about the time of his residence at Cambridge he mentioned to some of his friends the substance of an experiment respecting heat, which he did not make public till more than twenty years after¬ wards. The experiment here alluded to consisted in a mode of effecting a double distillation by the same heat, in consequence of a diminished pressure of the air; which was communicated by him to the Royal Society in 1814, and forms the subject of his last paper published in the Philosophical Transactions. The attention of the chemical world was at this time principally engaged by the great controversy respecting the antiphlogistic theory, which experienced much opposition in England. It may perhaps be wwth mentioning that Mr. Tennant entirely satisfied himself as to the truth of this doctrine, when at Cambridge, at a

Some account of the late Smithson Tennant, Esq., F.R.S., Professor of Chemistry in the University of Cambridge / [John Whishaw].

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