THE SILLIMAN FOUNDATION. 



In the year 1883 a legacy of eighty thousand dollars was left 

 to the President and Fellows of Yale College in the city of New 

 Haven, to be held in trust, as a gift from her children, in memory 

 of their beloved and honored mother, Mrs. Hepsa Ely Silliman. 



On this foundation Yale College was requested and directed to 

 establish an annual course of lectures designed to illustrate the 

 presence and providence, the wisdom and goodness of God, as 

 manifested in the natural and moral world. These were to be 

 designated as the Mrs. Hepsa Ely Silliman Lectures. It is the 

 belief of the testator that any orderly presentation of the facts 

 of nature or history contributed to the end of this foundation 

 more effectively than any attempt to emphasize the elements of 

 doctrine or creed ; and he therefore provided that lectures on 

 dogmatic or polemical theology should be excluded from the scope 

 of this foundation, and that the subjects should be selected rather 

 from the domains of natural science and history, giving special 

 prominence to astronomy, chemistry, geology, and anatomy. 



It was further directed that each annual course should be made 

 the basis of a volume to form part of a series constituting a 

 memorial to Mrs. Silliman. The memorial fund came into the 

 possession of the corporation of Yale University in the year 1901 ; 

 and the present volume constitutes the ninth of the series of 

 memorial lectures. 



