122 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



for the shells, and carbonate and phosphate for the crusts, 

 as of lobsters and crabs. I then compared them with the 

 vegetable world, and gave the instance of the grasses, usu 

 ally so called, and of wheat, rye, oats, and barley ; and of 

 the trees, bamboos, cane, sugar-cane, corn-stalk, and all 

 similar plants, which are either hollow or filled with a pulp, 

 so that these plants could not support themselves under their 

 own weight, with their fruit and with the force of the wind 

 upon them. Therefore they were provided by the Creator 

 with an epidermis or exterior coat of silex, flint taken up 

 by the plant from the soil, and which gave them the requisite 

 strength. In some of the larger bamboos the silex is crys 

 tallized, and many of them will strike fire with steel ; and 

 some plants with silicious coatings are used for scouring 

 knives, &c. I told him that if he would observe the ruins 

 of a barn of hay or a large hay-rick after it was burned 

 down, he would probably find glass resulting from the silex 

 vitrified by the alkali of the plant. This seemed to strike 

 him very forcibly ; and, as we drew near to Worcester, 

 where I told him we must part, (as we were going on the 

 Norwich road,) he expressed great regret, and said he 

 wished we were going through to Boston. He said that 

 the conversation had gratified him very much, and that he 

 would come to New Haven and renew it. He then turned 

 to Mrs. Silliman, who had been an attentive listener, and 

 added : " Madam, if I was as rich as Mr. Astor, I tell you 

 what I would do : I would pay your husband $20,000 to 

 come and sit down by me and teach me, for I do not know 

 anything." I must not omit that he and Mrs. Silliman 

 found topics of mutual interest in some individuals, and 

 particularly one lady at Marshfield, whom both of them had 

 known in earlier years. He adverted to the late trial of 

 Mr. Goodyear's patent at Trenton, in which he said, that 

 my certificate, proving the discovery by Goodyear thirteen 

 years ago, had a decisive weight, a remark which has 

 been since proved true, by the published opinion of the 



