The Beginnings of American Science. 441 



more justly be bestowed upon Maclure, or even upon Mitchill. The 

 name of Amos Eaton [1). 1776, d. 1872] will always be memorable, on 

 account of his connection with the geological survey of New York, which 

 was begun in 1820, at the private expense of Hon. Stephen Van Rens- 

 selaer; also as the founder, in 1824, of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Insti- 

 tute, the first of its class on the continent. 



The State of New York was not preeminently prompt in establishing 

 an official survey, but the liberality of \'au Rensselaer and the energy of 

 Eaton gave to New York the honor of attaching the names of its towns 

 and counties to a large number of the geological formations of North 

 America. 



In these early surveys Eaton was associated with Doctor Theodore 

 Romeyn Beck and Mr. H. Webster, naturalist and collector, one of the 

 first being a survey of the count)' of Albany, under the special direction 

 of a County Agricultural Societ)', followed by similar surveys of Rens- 

 selaer County and Saratoga County and others along the Erie Canal. 



In July, 1 8 18, Professor vSilliman began the publication of the Ameri- 

 can Journal of vScience, which has been for more than two-thirds of a 

 century the most prominent register of the scientific progress of this 

 continent. Silliman's journal succeeded, and far more than replaced, 

 the American ISIineralogical Journal, the earliest of American scientific 

 periodicals, which was established in New York in iSio by Doctor Archi- 

 bald Bruce, and which was discontinued after the close of the first vol- 

 ume, in 18 14, on account of the illness and untimely death of its projec- 

 tor.' The Mineralogical Journal was not so limited in scope as in name, 

 and was for a time the principal organ of our scientific specialists. 



We can but admire the spirit of Silliman, who remarks in the preface 

 to the third volume: 



It must require several years from the com.mencement of the work to decide the 

 question [whether it is to be supported] , and the editor (if God continues his life and 

 health) will endeavor to prove himself neither impatient nor querulous during the 

 time that his countrymen hold the question undecided, whether there shall be an 

 American Journal of Science and Arts. 



In the fall of 1822 he announced that a trial of four years had decided 

 the point that the American public would support this journal. 



Prior to the establishing of Silliman' s journal, the principal organs 

 of American science were the Medical Repository, commenced in 1798, 

 of which Doctor Mitchill was the chief proprietor; the New York Med- 

 ical and Physical Journal, conducted chiefly by Doctor Hosack; the 

 Boston Journal of Philosophy and the Arts, and other similar periodicals. 

 Our students looked chiefly, however, to the English journals: Tilloch's 



' " No future historian of American science will fail to commemorate this work as 

 • our earliest purely scientific Journal, supported by original American communica- 

 tions,^'' said Silliman in his prospectus, 1817. 



