184 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



experiments with Dr. Hare with the oxyhydrogen blowpipe, 

 which Hare had just then invented. In 1805 he visited Europe, 

 spending much time in England and Scotland where he met 

 or studied under Professors Hope, Murray, Playfair and other 

 eminent men of science, at the same time recording his impres- 

 sions of men and things which he published later under the 

 title of a " Journal of Travels in England, Holland, and Scot- 

 land in 1805-06." 



Upon his return to America, Professor Silliman resumed 

 his lectures at Yale, and continued in the duties of his professor- 

 ship for half a century. In 181 1 he conducted an extensive series 

 of experiments in melting refractory minerals with Hare's blow- 

 pipe, of which he published an account the following year. At 

 the same time, while working with Hare's " galvanic defla- 

 grator," he observed that the charcoal of the positive pole was 

 transferred to the negative pole and that it was fused. " It is 

 claimed for Professor Silliman that he was the first to establish 

 this transfer of the particles of carbon, and the first also to fuse 

 carbon in the voltaic arch." (Caswell.) 



In 1819 he established the highly important scientific period- 

 ical, the American Journal of Science, with which his name is 

 most widely associated, and of which he was the sole editor for 

 twenty years, and the senior editor for eight years in addition. 



In 1820 he published an account of a journey from Hartford 

 to Quebec, in 1829 an edition of Bakewell's Geology, with an 

 appendix containing a summary of his own lectures on that sub- 

 ject, and in 1830 the whole body of his lectures on chemistry at 

 Yale, under the title of " Elements of Chemistry, in the order 

 of the lectures given in Yale College." 



From 1834 to 1845 Professor Silliman delivered courses of 

 lectures on scientific subjects in the principal cities of the United 

 States from Boston to New Orleans. He visited Europe again 

 in 1851, and in 1853 published an account of his observations in 

 three duodecimo volumes. 



Regarding Professor Silliman's labors, Caswell remarks " His 

 special field was the diffusion of science; and his special gifts 



