552 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



He was one of the fifty original members named in the act of Con- 

 gress in 1863 incorporating the National Academy of Sciences, and 

 served the Government in this capacity during the war upon some im- 

 portant commissions. 



He is also one of the trustees of the Peabody Museum of Natural 

 History, provided by the munificence of the late George Peabody, of 

 London ; and is a member of numerous scientific societies on both 

 sides of the Atlantic. 



In 1849 he received the honorary degree of M. D. from the Uni- 

 versity of Charleston, South Carolina. 



In 1853 Mr. Silliman had charge of the chemical, mineralogical, 

 and geological department of the Crystal Palace in New York ; and 

 also, in connection with Mr. Charles R. Goodrich, edited the " World 

 of Science, Art, and Industry," illustrated, 500 figures, pp. 207, 4to; and 

 in 1854, " The Progress of Science and Mechanism," 4to, pp. 258, in 

 which the chief results of the great Exhibition were recorded. 



In 1868 Professor Silliman parted with his private cabinet of min- 

 erals, of his own collecting, to Cornell University, where it is now 

 exhibited as the " Silliman Cabinet." He has made important addi- 

 tions to the mineralogical collections of Yale College, and to the metal- 

 lurgical cabinet of the Scientific School, the results of his various ex- 

 plorations. He solicited the funds by which the mineralogical cabinet 

 of the late Baron de Lederer was added to the college collections in 

 1843. 



In 1842 Mr. Silliman commenced to receive private pupils in ana- 

 lytical chemistry and mineralogy, in an apartment of the old laboratory 

 in Yale College, which he had fitted up at his own expense for this pur- 

 pose amd to conduct original investigations in science. Previously to 

 this time there had been no provision made for the instruction of ad- 

 vanced students in physical and chemical science either at Yale College 

 or elsewhere in the United States, and the academical students had 

 been instructed in chemistry almost exclusively by public lectures. 

 From the first it was evident that there was the germ of a new devel- 

 opment in the small beginning, which soon took form as the "Yale 

 Scientific School," and subsequently grew into the " Sheflield Scientific 

 School." 



Among the first students who sought Professor Silliman's instruc- 

 tion were Mr. John P. Norton and Mr. T. Sterry Hunt, since among 

 the most distinguished men of science in the United States. These 

 studies were entirely outside the college curriculum. The college for 

 some years took no cognizance of this effort, which was sustained 

 solely as an individual enterprise. The students it brought to the 

 university were not even recognized as such, and their names did not 

 appear for some years in the college catalogue. But in 1846 a memoir 

 was addressed to the corporation of Yale College, drawn up chiefly by 

 Mr. Silliman, Jr., but adopted and ably seconded by his father, who 



