Henry, who has contributed so much to our knowledge of gaseous bodies, and whose analytical skill, had it been wholly devoted to scientific investigations, would have raised his reputation, as a discoverer, much higher than it has attained; although the celebrity of Dr. Henry, even under the disadvantages of being a manufacturing chemist, is deservedly very high. Of the young chemists who have but recently started in the path of analytical investigation, we expect the most from Dr. Turner, of the London University. His analyses of the ores of manganese are admirable specimens of skill and accuracy, and have completely elucidated a branch of mineralogy which, before his experiments, and the descriptions of Haidinger appeared, was buried in impenetrable darkness. No man that Great Britain has produced was better fitted to have figured as an analytical chemist, both by his uncommon chemical skill, and the powers of his mind, which were of the highest order, than Mr. Smithson Tennant, had he not been in some measure prevented by a delicate frame of body, which produced in him a state of indolence somewhat similar to that of Dr. Black. His discovery of osmium and iridium, and his analysis of emery and magnesian limestone, may be mentioned as proofs of what he could have accomplished had his health allowed him a greater degree of exertion. His experiments on the diamond first demonstrated that it was composed of pure carbon; while his discovery of phosphuret of lime has furnished lecturers on chemistry with one of the most brilliant and beautiful of those exhibitions which they are in the habit of making to attract the attention of their students. Smithson Tennant was the only child of the Rev. Calvert Tennant, youngest son of a respectable family in Wensleydale, near Richmond, in Yorkshire, and vicar of Selby in that county. He was born on the 30th of November, 1761: he had the misfortune to lose his father when he was only nine years of age; and before he attained the age of manhood he was deprived likewise of his mother, by a very unfortunate accident: she was thrown from her horse while riding with her son, and killed on the spot. His education, after his father's death, was irregular, and apparently neglected; he was sent successively to different schools in Yorkshire, at Scorton, Tadcaster, and Beverley. He gave many proofs while young of a particular turn for chemistry and natural philosophy, both by reading all books of that description which fell in his way, and by making various little experiments which the perusal of these books suggested. His first experiment was made at nine years of age, when he prepared a quantity of gunpowder for fireworks, according to directions contained in some scientific book to which he had access.