Word: smithson
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...very happy James Smithson of England sat down to write his will. He had half a million dollars but only a nephew to enjoy them. He was 61 and infirm. His father, the Duke of Northumberland, had never married his mother, a Tudor lady. He had spent his life less among men than in the pursuit of knowledge- mixing chemicals, examining minerals, pondering the earth's origin, improving oil lamps. He had never been in the U. S. but it occurred to him that in such a young country on such a rich continent at such an epochal moment...