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 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 effectively than any attempt to emphasize the 

 elements of doctrine 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 his- 

 tory, 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 work constitutes the nineteenth volume 

 published on this foundation. 



