THE SILLIMAN FOUNDATION 



Ik 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 chil- 

 dren, in memory of their beloved and honored mother, Mrs. 

 Hepsa Ely Silliman. 



On this foundation Yale College was requested and di- 

 rected 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 Memorial Lectures. It was the belief of the testator 

 that any orderly presentation of the facts of nature or 

 history contributed to the end of this foundation more effec- 

 tively than any attempt to emphasize the elements of doc- 

 trine or of 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 con- 

 stituting a memorial to Mrs. Silliman. The memorial fund 

 came into the possession of the Corporation of Yale Uni- 

 versity in the year 1901; and the present work constitutes 

 the twentieth volume published on this foundation. 



