Forty-second Annual Meeting. 25 



tor Woodhouse was wanting in personal dignity, and was, out of 

 lecture hours, sometimes jocose with the students. ... In 

 his person he was short, with a florid face. He was always 

 dressed with care ; generally he wore a blue broadcloth coat 

 with metal buttons. His hair was powdered and his appear- 

 ance was gentlemanly. His lectures were quite free from any 

 moral bearing. At the commencement of the course he 

 treated with levity and ridicule the idea that the visitations 

 of the yellow fever might be visitations of God for the sins of 

 the people. He imputed them to material agencies and phys- 

 ical causes. I should add, respecting his lectures, that they 

 were brief. He generally occupied a third or a fourth of the 

 hour in recapitulating the subject of the preceding lecture, 

 and thus advanced at the rate of about forty or forty-five 

 minutes in a day." 



One of the most valuable experiences for Silliman during 

 the two winters he passed in Philadelphia was his acquaintance 

 with Hare. They worked much together with the oxyhydrogen 

 blowpipe, which had been recently invented by the young Phila- 

 delphia chemist. 



It was also the good fortune of Silliman to meet, at the table 

 of Doctor Wistar, Joseph Priestley, and he speaks of him as 

 follows: "In person he was small and slender. His age was 

 then about seventy. His dress was clerical and perfectly 

 plain. His manners were mild, modest and conciliatory; so 

 that, although in controversy a sturdy combatant, he always 

 won kind regard and favor in his personal intercourse. Speak- 

 ing of his chemical discoveries, which were very numerous, 

 Priestley said : 'When I had made a discovery I did not wait to 

 perfect it by a more elaborate research, but at once threw it 

 out in the world, that I might establish my claim before it was 

 anticipated.' " This , method was certainly characteristic of 

 the older scientist and at times led him into error. 



The second period in the education of Silliman was the win- 

 ter of 1805-'06, which was spent in England. Part of this time 

 was passed in London in the laboratory of Frederick Accum, 

 where the days were devoted to the analysis of ores, to the 

 preparation of crystallized vegetable acids, to the investigation 

 of arsenic compounds, etc.; in short, a course in analytical and 

 preparative chemistry, facilities for which had been lacking in 

 Philadelphia. 



In 1806 he migrated to Edinburgh, to attend the lectures of 



