1864.] THE LATE PROFESSOR SILLIMAN. 461 



It is a very generally accepted theory, propounded by Sir 

 Roderick Murchison, that, while gold is confined to Lower Silurian 

 strata, it did not make its appearance therein until just before the 

 time of the drift. As the gold of Nova Scotia was probably in- 

 troduced into, or assumed its present form in the quartz-leads, at 

 the time of the metamorphism of the Silurian rocks, which meta- 

 morphism was Pre-Carboniferous, I had doubted the correctness of 

 this theory. The occurrence of gold in the Carboniferous rocks 

 of Corbitt's Mills, shows that it is not to be applied to the Prov- 

 ince of Nova Scotia. 



G. Fred. Hartt. 



Halifax, Oct. 27, 1864. 



OBITUARY. 



PROFESSOR BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



Our honored associate, Professor Benjamin Silliman, the founder 

 of this Journal (Silliman's Journal), whose name has appeared 

 upon the title-page of every number, from the first until the 

 present, is with us no more. He died at his residence in New 

 Haven, early Thursday morning, November 24, 1864, (the day set 

 apart for a national thanksgiving,) having reached the age of 

 eighty-five years. 



It becomes our duty to place on record in these pages, as an 

 inscription to the monument which he has himself erected, an out- 

 line of his career and a tribute to his memory. Few men enter 

 life with such promise as he ; fewer still sustain themselves so 

 evenly, and die so widely lamented. 



Instruction in natural science has been his great work; and in 

 it he was emphatically a man of the times. Beginning when 

 almost nothing was known in this country of the departments to 

 which he was especially devoted, he lived to see them carried for- 

 ward to a high degree of progress, and their importance everywhere 

 acknowlediicd. His life, which was one of few marked incidents, 

 was passed in his native State, in connection with Yale College, 

 the institution that early selected him as one of its faculty. Two 

 or three times he was invited to become the president of colleges 

 elsewhere, but New Haven continued his chosen home. Twice 

 he visited Europe, first in 1805-6, in order to qualify himself for 



