274 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



service rendered to science by the Journal. As 

 editor, Mr. Silliman became the recipient of com 

 munications without number from every part of the 

 country. Not only such as made science a profes 

 sion sent him their papers, but unlearned pioneers 

 in the East and the West would give him informa 

 tion of curious objects that fell under their notice in 

 exploring the country. By gathering together so 

 many scattered rays of light, the Journal aided not 

 only in the diffusion, but also in the advancement, 

 of the sciences. Another result was the intercourse 

 into which Mr. Silliman was brought with scientific 

 men abroad. Their discoveries were also announced 

 to the American public in the Journal, and their 

 articles not unfrequently found a place on its pages. 

 His reputation in Europe was without doubt the 

 effect, for the most part, of his editorial labors. 



The following paragraphs record bereavements 

 that deeply affected him, the death of his mother 

 and of his eldest son : 



Sickness and Death of my Mother, JE. 83. Until the 

 spring of 1814 she had enjoyed very good health, when she 

 was prostrated at Wallingford, at the age of seventy-eight, 

 by an attack of pneumonia, and she never recovered her 

 former vigor. She was thrice a widow, and the time when 

 she was at liberty she divided among her children. I brought 

 her from Norfield, the residence of her son, the Rev. John 

 Noyes, in June 1818. She passed a few days in my house, 

 and I then conducted her to Wallingford, which was her 

 favorite home. She was feeble, and continued to decline 

 until July 2d, when she passed gently out of life, eighty- 

 two years old in the preceding May. I had not received 

 information of the impending event. A letter sent by a 

 private hand was not seasonably delivered. I was therefore 



