Forty-second Annual Meeting. 23 



ods was destined to change a descriptive science into an 

 exact science. 



But the New World was soon to catch an echo of these dis- 

 coveries, when Priestley, theologian, scientist and last de- 

 fender of the "phlogiston" theory, driven from his English 

 home by a mob, landed in New York in 1794. Proceeding to 

 Philadelphia, he was greeted with an address from the Amer- 

 ican Philosophical Society, and by an unanimous vote of the 

 trustees was offered the professorship of chemistry in the 

 University of Philadelphia. This he refused, retiring instead 

 to the little town of Northumberland, where he was engaged 

 in literary and scientific work until his death, in 1804. To 

 Priestley, to Woodhouse, professor of chemistry in the Uni- 

 versity of Philadelphia and pupil of Humphrey Davy, and to 

 John McLean, professor of chemistry at Princeton, who had 

 received his training under Black and Lavoisier, we owe in 

 great part the increased interest in chemistry in America at 

 the beginning of the nineteenth century. 



That such an interest was awakened is shown by the pass- 

 age of the following resolution, at the suggestion of the 

 shrewd president of Yale, Doctor Dwight, September 12, 1798 : 

 "Voted, that a professorship of chemistry and natural his- 

 tory be instituted in this college as soon as the funds shall be 

 sufficiently productive to support it." Four years later it was 

 "Voted, that a professorship of chemistry and natural his- 

 tory be, and hereby is, instituted in this college. Voted, that 

 it is expedient to select for a professor of chemistry and 

 natural history some person of competent talents, giving him 

 such time to give his answer, whether he will accept such ap- 

 pointment or not, as he may desire and as may be agreed upon 

 between him and the corporation." For this position Benja- 

 min Silliman, esq., was declared chosen. Silliman at this time 

 was twenty-three years of age. He had graduated at Yale at 

 the age of seventeen and had later returned to his alma mater 

 as tutor. He accepted the appointment, with the proviso that 

 time and opportunity be given him to become acquainted with 

 his new duties. He had this advantage : he came to these un- 

 familiar fields with mind wholly free from prejudice. He had 

 nothing whatever to unlearn. As he remarks: "During my 

 novitiate chemistry was scarcely ever named. I well remem- 

 ber when I received my earliest impressions in relation to 



