Daniel Rutherford was born at Edinburgh and educated at the University of his native city. He took his degree of M.D. in 1772, and in the Thesis which he published upon this occasion, entitled 'De Aëre Fixo,' he pointed out for the first time a new gaseous substance, since distinguished by the name of Azote or Nitrogen. On the 6th of May, 1777, he was admitted a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and in a paper on Nitre, read before the Philosophical Society in 1778, he described, under the name of Vital Air, what is now called Oxygen gas. On the death of Dr. John Hope in 1786, Rutherford was elected Professor of Botany and Keeper of the Botanical Gardens at Edinburgh, a duty which he discharged until the time of his death, in 1819, at the age of seventy.--_Edinburgh Philosophical Journal_, vol. 3. May 1820. WILLIAM SMITH, LL.D. Born March 23, 1769. Died August 28, 1839. William Smith, the 'Father of English Geology,' was born at Churchill, a village in Oxfordshire. His father died when he was eight years old, and his mother marrying again, William was brought up under the care of his uncle, to part of whose property he was heir. From this kinsman, who had little sympathy with his nephew's early displayed taste for collecting specimens of the various stones in the neighbourhood, young Smith with difficulty obtained money for the purchase of a few books fit to instruct a boy in the rudiments of geometry and surveying. He, however, continued to prosecute these studies without instruction or sympathy, but still with ardour and success until the year 1787, when, having attained the age of eighteen, and being tolerably versed in the geometry and calculations at that time thought sufficient for engineers and surveyors, he became assistant to Mr. Edward Webb, of Stow-on-the-Wold, who had been appointed to make a complete survey of the parish of Churchill. Being speedily entrusted with the management of all the ordinary business of a surveyor, Mr. Smith traversed in continual activity the counties of Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, and Warwickshire, carefully noticing all the varieties of soil over which he passed, and comparing them with the general aspect and character of the country. Between the years 1791 and 1793, he also made minute subterraneous surveys of the High Littleton collieries, which afforded him an opportunity of confirming views previously conceived as to the regularity in formation of the different strata composing the earth's crust. At this period the services of civil engineers were in great request, and the duties entrusted to them were such as Mr. Smith was well qualified to perform. Several gentlemen in the neighbourhood interested themselves in forwarding his professional career, and he obtained an engagement to make surveys and levels for a proposed line of canal in Somersetshire. In the course of these operations, Smith discovered that the strata lying above coal were not laid horizontally,