CHAPTER XV. 



LECTURES IX NANTUCKET AND BOSTON: INVESTIGATION 

 UPON THE CULTURE OF SUGAR. 



Lectures in Nantucket. Intercourse with John Quincy Adams. Arduous 

 Labors. Chemical Course in Boston (1836). Dr. Channing. Miss 

 Martineau. His Success in Boston. His Investigation of the Culture 

 and Manufacture of Sugar. Interviews with General Jackson and Mr. 

 McLean. Visit to the Gold Mines of Virginia. Slavery. 



THE favorable impression resulting from the four public 

 courses of geology, which I had given during the last year 

 (1834), three of them in Massachusetts, in and near Boston, 

 was extended to Nantucket. Mr. James M. Bunker, a grad 

 uate of Yale College in the class of 1832, and his brother, 

 on behalf of the citizens, made overtures to me for a course 

 of lectures in their maritime city, and the correspondence 

 resulted in an engagement. 



In this course, as previously at Salem, he was 

 assisted by his son, Mr. Benjamin Silliman, Jr. 



In a letter to Mrs. Silliman of September 8, are the fol 

 lowing remarks : "I have lectured one hour and a half, 

 and have not felt the worse for it. Our son is a great com 

 fort and an important aid to me ; he has had no recreation 

 except one excursion with his gun, in company with an 

 older friend. We have both been so completely occupied 

 that we have had no time for study. Our chemical experi 

 ments have given us much employment, and all of them, 

 especially those with the calorimotor and compound blow 

 pipe, have been very successful. The people are astonished 



