Christen Smith

Christen Smith, ca 1810

Christen Smith (17 October 1785, Skoger – 22 September 1816, Congo) was a Norwegian physician, economist and naturalist, particularly botanist.

Early years

Smith was born at Skoger in Drammen, Norway. He studied medicine and botany at the University of Copenhagen under professor Martin Vahl. Together with Jens Wilken Hornemann, he travelled through large parts of Norway and made botanical investigations, including collecting plants to be included in the plate work Flora Danica. Joakim Frederik Schouw and Morten Wormskjold were in the company on part of the trip. The party climbed several mountain tops in Jotunheimen. For some of which it was the first recorded ascent, e.g. Bitihorn 1811 and Hårteigen 1812.^[1]

The Canari and Madeira expeditions

The long needled Canari Island pine, described as a new species by Smith

In 1808, Smith graduated and started to practice medicine in Norway. In 1814, he was appointed professor of national economy and botany at the newly founded Royal Frederick University in Christiania (now Oslo). However, he never took up the position as he engaged on travels abroad to make contacts and keep abreast of the development of botanical gardens in Europe. His first travels took him to the Scotland, and from there to London where he met the Prussian geologist Leopold von Buch. Von Buch wished to visit the volcanic islands Canary Islands and Madeira and Smith eagerly seized the chance to go on an expedition with the experienced scientist.^[2] In 1815 the two embarked on the trip. They returned in 1918, Smith bringing 600 species of plants, where off about 50 were new to science.^[1] The best known of Smiths new species is probably the Pinus canariensis, the Canari Island pine.^[3]

Death on the Congo

Having learned geology from von Buch in addition to finding new plant species, he was approached by Royal Society of London and asked to partake on a scientific expedition under captain James Kingston Tuckey to find if the Congo River had any connection to the Niger basins of western and central Africa. Smith was to function as the expeditions botanist and geologist.

The Congo expedition went bad from the start. The original plan was to sail up the river using the expedition ship "HMS Congo". The Congo had originally been constructed as a steamboat, a technology that was in its infancy. While the ship was eventually rigged for conventional sails, the heavy construction made it sit deep in the water. And the accompanying lighter vessel "Dorothy" was used, but was stopped by rapids 160 km inland, and the expedition continued on foot up along the Congo through mosquito-infested swamps.^[4] The expedition reached 450 kilometre up the river, but lack of food, hostile tribes and ravaging tropical fevers forced the expedition to turn around, without ever finding the proposed connection. On the way downriver, Smith caught a tropical fever and died. 18 of the 56 members of the expedition perished, including all scientists and the captain who died after returning to the ship.^[4] The ill-fated expedition was among the inspiration for the Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness, written almost a century later.^[1]

Smiths legacy

Before succumbing to the fever, captain Tuckey made sure Smiths diary and plant collections were brought back to London. His herbarium from the trip consisted of 620 species, of which 250 proved to be new to science, but published by other botanists. Several of the text he had left were later published by his friend Martin Richard Flor.^[1][2]

The standard author abbreviation C.Sm. is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name.^[5]

Many species have been named for Smith, e.g. Aeonium smithii Sims (1818) from Tenerife and the genus Christiana (Malvaceae: Brownlowioideae), detected in Congo by Christen Smith, and named by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle in 1824 in his Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis.^[3]

Notes and references

1. ^ ^{a b c d} Munthe, Preben (2004): Christen Smith - botaniker og økonom (in Norwegian). Aschehoug, Oslo ISBN 82-03-22965-4
2. ^ ^{a b} Baron von Buch, L. (1826) Biographical Memoir of the late Christian Smith, M. D. Naturalist to the Congo Expedition. Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 1: 209-216. Full text
3. ^ ^{a b} Sunding, Per (2004): Christen Smith’s diary from the Canary Islands and his importance for the Canarian botany. Project Humboldt.
4. ^ ^{a b} Tuckey, J. K. (1818): Narrative of an expedition to explore the river Zaire, usually called the Congo, in South Africa, in 1816, under the direction of Captain J.K. Tuckey R.N. To which is added, The journal of Professor Smith; some general observations on the country and its inhabitants. London: J. Murray. Full text
5. ^ "Author Query". International Plant Names Index. http://www.ipni.org/ipni/authorsearchpage.do. 

See also

• Observations, systematical and geographical, on the herbarium collected by Professor Christian Smith, in the vicinity of the Congo

Persondata
Name	Smith, Christen
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	17 October 1785
Place of birth
Date of death	22 September 1816
Place of death