4A A CENTURY OF SCIENCE 



Montieello, Apr. 11. '18. 

 Sir 



The unlucky displacement of your letter of Mar 3 has been 

 the cause of delay in my answer, altho' I have very generally 

 withdrawn from subscribing to or reading periodical publica- 

 tions from the love of rest which age produces, yet I willingly 

 subscribe to the journal you propose from a confidence that the 

 talent with which it will be edited will entitle it to attention 

 among the things of select reading for which alone I have time 

 now left, be so good as to send it by mail, and the receipt of 

 the 1st number will be considered as announcing that the work 

 is commenced and the subscription money for a year shall be 

 forwarded. Accept the assurance of my great esteem and 

 respect. 



Th. Jefferson 



Professor Silliman. 



Contributors. An interesting summary is also given 

 by Silliman of the contributors to the Journal and the 

 extent of their work (vol. 50, pp. xii, xiii) ; he says : 



We find that there have been about 600 contributors of orig- 

 inal matter to the Journal, and we have the unexpected satis- 

 faction of believing that probably five-sixths of them are still 

 living; for we are not certain that more than fifty are among 

 the dead; of perhaps fifty more we are without information, 

 and if that additional number is to be enrolled among the ' ' stel- 

 ligeri," we have still 500 remaining. Among them are not a 

 few of the veterans with whom we began our career, and several 

 of these are still active contributors. Shall we then conclude 

 that the peaceful pursuits of knowledge are favorable to long 

 life? This we think is, cceteris paribus, certainly true: but in 

 the present instance, another reason can be assigned for the 

 large amount of survivorship. As the Journal has advanced 

 and death has removed its scientific contributors, younger men 

 and men still younger, have recruited the ranks, and volunteers 

 have enlisted in numbers constantly increasing, so that the 

 flower of the host are now in the morning and meridian of life. 



We have been constantly advancing, like a traveller from the 

 equinoctial towards the colder zones, as we have increased our 

 latitude, stars have set and new stars have risen, while a few 

 planetary orbs visible in every zone, have continued to cheer us 

 on our course. 



The number of articles, almost exclusively original, contained 

 in the Journal is about 1800, and the Index will show how many 



