526 BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



date of the meeting. This was the result of a large amount of labor, 

 and is a valuable historical work. It may be referred to for a com- 

 plete \ht of Professor Silliman's papers up to this date. 



Professor Sillimaa was the author of an elementary treatise on 

 Chemistry, and also of a similar work, entitled, " First Principles of 

 Pliysics, or Natural Philoso{)hy." Both of these works were for a 

 long time very extensively used as text-books throughout the United 

 States, and of the first more than fifty thousand copies are said to have 

 been sold. Soon after the Industrial Exhibition in New York, 1853, 

 during which Professor Silliman had charge of the Chemical, Minera- 

 logical, and Geological Department, he edited, in connection with ]\Ir. 

 Charles K. Goodrich, a large illustrated quarto volume, entitled, " The 

 World of Science, Art, and Industry," and, in 1804, another similar 

 volume, entitled, "The Progress of Science and Mechanism." One of 

 the latest and most important of his literary works was a report to 

 the National Academy of Sciences, as chairman of a committee ap- 

 pointed by them on the subject of the use of Sorghum as a source of 

 sugar ; and the last work of his life was a preparation of a l)iogra{)hi- 

 cal notice, for the same Academy, of his late friend and associate, 

 Mr. J. Lawrence Smith. 



In the department of Mineralogy Professor Silliman took an especial 

 interest, and, as his means of collecting were large, he accumulated a 

 fine cabinet, which in 18G8 was sold to Cornell University, where it 

 bears the name of the Silliman Cabinet. He also, by his gifts and 

 personal exertions, made important additions to the magnificent col- 

 lection of minerals at Yale College. 



During the last twenty years of his life Professor Silliman's great 

 energies were largely devoted to industrial interests of various kinds, and 

 especially to mining. As a mining expert, he travelled often through 

 the extreme length and breadth of the United States, and visited every 

 important mining region both in this country and in Mexico, and his 

 reports on mining interests have been very numerous, and have in- 

 volved a great amount of work. He was inclined to such work by his 

 mineralogical and mechanical tastes, and by his active habits, as well as 

 from the force of circumstances. If he sometimes made mistakes 

 of judgment, they were the result of an over sanguine and trustful 

 temperament, not sufficiently regulated by the caution which the 

 training of a mining school and tiie life of a mining camp gives to 

 those who have been bred to the profession of a mining engineer. 

 Certainly no one suffered from the consequences of his mistakes so 

 greatly as himself. 



