9, 1851, he was visiting Charleston. He described himself as a "peripatetic philosopher" and lamented his lack of a settled laboratory, writing "All my scientific labors have as yet been carried on in the Gipsey style." On June 24, 1852, J. Lawrence Smith married Sarah Julia Guthrie, daughter of James Guthrie. In the autumn of 1852 he took up a professorship in the chair of chemistry at the University of Virginia, replacing Robert Empie Rogers, who moved to Philadelphia. This proved particularly productive for Smith's scientific research. His publications included a method for analyzing the alkaline silicates, work he had begun in Paris. This was an important contribute to analytical methods. As a result of his father-in-law's appointment as Secretary of the Treasury in 1853, the couple moved to Washington, D.C. where Sarah served as a hostess for her father. Smith was able to do some work at the Smithsonian Institution and gave lectures for the US Department of Agriculture, but had little opportunity for research. James Guthrie had helped to found the University of Louisville, and in 1854 Smith took over a position there as chair and Professor of Medical Chemistry and Toxicology in the university's medical department. He replaced Benjamin Silliman Jr., who moved to Yale. Smith remained at Louisville from 1854 until 1866, resigning not long after the death of James Guthrie. Smith was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1857. After 1866, he spent much of his time traveling in Europe, collecting, studying and writing about "aerolites". His interest in meteorites predated his retirement from Louisville; his earliest paper on the subject was read before the American Association for the Advancement of Science in April, 1854. The last paper he published, in the American Journal of Sciences, 1883, was "On the peculiar concretions in meteoric iron." Smith served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1872) and of the American Chemical Society (1877). Smith purchased a collection of meteorites that had belonged to Gerard Troost of Nashville, Tennessee, and extended it by collecting specimens from all over the world. He attempted to obtain specimens from as many different meteoric falls as possible. His collection was estimated to contain specimens from about two hundred and fifty falls, with a combined weight of around twenty-five hundred pounds, He wished his collection to be kept together, and after his death it became the property