The search beneath the sea; the story of the coelacanth

by J.L.B. Smith

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About the author

James Leonard Brierley Smith, known as J.L.B. Smith (26 October 1897 – 7 January 1968) was a South African ichthyologist, organic chemist and university professor. He was the first to identify a taxidermied fish as a coelacanth, at the time thought long extinct.

Born in Graaff-Reinet, Smith was the elder of two sons of Joseph Smith and his wife, Emily Ann Beck. Educated at country schools at Noupoort, De Aar, and Aliwal North, he finally matriculated in 1914 from the Diocesan College, Rondebosch. He obtained a BA degree in Chemistry from the University of the Cape of Good Hope in 1916 and an MSc degree in Chemistry at Stellenbosch University in 1918. Smith went to the United Kingdom, were he received his Ph.D at Cambridge University in 1922. After returning to South Africa, he became Senior Lecturer and later on an Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry at Rhodes University in Grahamstown.

From 1922 to 1937 he was married to Henrietta Cecile Pienaar, who was a descendant of Andrew Murray, and whose father was a minister of the NG Kerk at Somerset West. There were three children of that marriage.

In Grahamstown he met Margaret Mary Macdonald, born at Indwe in the Eastern Cape on 26 September 1916. After her school education she studied at Rhodes University where she obtained a B.Sc. degree in Physics and Chemistry. She had intended studying medicine, but in 1938 married Smith and became his assistant in the department of ichthyology at the university.

His interest in ichthyology was sparked in childhood during a vacation in Knysna.

In 1938 Smith was informed of the discovery of an unusual and unidentified fish by Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, curator of the East London Museum. When he arrived in East London in February 1939, he was able to identify it immediately as a coelacanth, which was then thought to have been extinct for over 65 million years, and he named the species Latimeria after her. He was instrumental in organising the search which provided science with the second specimen of the species 14 years later.

Smith and his wife Margaret worked jointly on the popular Sea Fishes of South Africa, which was first published in 1949, followed by other writings until 1968. Among these were over 500 papers on fish and the naming of some 370 new fish species.

Smith took his own life in 1968 by cyanide poisoning, following a long illness. His widow Margaret founded the Institute of Ichthyology in Grahamstown. His son is the renowned South African television science and mathematics teacher William Smith.

Reviews

[Jessie]

I can't rate because I didn't actually read. I'm entering it to remind myself that this IS NOT the book about the coelacanth that I read at my grandma's in the early 80s, and which I am obsessed with finding.