AMERICAN JOUENAL OF SCIENCE 25 



a great duty, that of laying the foundation, and creating 

 almost out of nothing a department not before recognized in any 

 institution in America. 



He began his work in 1806. The science was without books 

 and, too, without system, except such as its few cultivators had 

 each for himself in his conceptions. It was the age of the first 

 beginnings of geology, when Wernerians and Huttonians were 

 arrayed in a contest. . . . Professor Silliman when at Edin- 

 burgh witnessed the strife, and while, as he says, his earliest 

 predilections were for the more peaceful mode of rock-making, 

 these soon yielded to the accumulating evidence, and both views 

 became combined in his mind in one harmonious whole. The 

 science, thus evolved, grew with him and by him; for his own 

 labors contributed to its extension. Every year was a year of 

 expansion and onward development, and the grandeur of the 

 opening views found in him a ready and appreciative response. 



And while the sciences and truth have thus made progress 

 here, through these labors of fifty years, the means of study in 

 the institution have no less increased. Instead of that half- 

 bushel of stones, which once went to Philadelphia for names, in 

 a candle-box, you see above the largest mineral cabinet in the 

 country, which but for Professor Silliman, his attractions and 

 his personal exertions together, would never have been one of 

 the glories of old Yale. . . . 



Moreover, the American Journal of Science, now in its 

 thirty-seventh year and seventieth volume [1856], projected 

 and long-sustained solely by Professor Silliman, while ever dis- 

 tributing truth, has also been ever gathering honors, and is one 

 of the laurels of Yale. 



We rejoice that in laying aside his studies, after so many 

 years of labor, there is still no abated vigor. . . . He retires 

 as one whose right it is to throw the burden on others. Long 

 may he be with us, to enjoy the good he has done, and cheer us 

 by his noble and benign presence/' 



In addition to these words of Dana, much of vital 

 interest in regard to Silliman and his work will be 

 gathered from what is given in the pages immediately 

 following, quoted from his personal statements in the 

 early volumes of the Journal. 



The Early Years of the Journal. 



In no direction did Silliman 's enthusiastic activities in 

 science produce a more enduring result than in the found- 



