ATTRACTIONS OF NEW HAVEN 



numerous attractions it has, its libraries, cabinets of speci- 

 mens in natural history, and your laboratory, had al- 

 ready determined me to make it my place of residence 

 while studying for a profession." Among the advan- 

 tages, the cabinet of minerals bought from Colonel Gibbs 

 (already mentioned) must not be forgotten. 



The duties of the new position were not arduous, and 

 they gave the young man both opportunity and leisure 

 for study. He thus speaks of the place: 



1 The duties, however, are quite light, for they consist 

 mainly in laying out the specimens, geological or min- 

 eralogical, for the lectures of Professor Silliman, and the 

 whole does not occupy more than three hours per day. 

 I find, however, sufficient to occupy the remaining part 

 of the day, so that I am not compelled to betake myself 

 to that most laborious method of spending time, idle- 

 ness." 



In those years there was at New Haven an association 

 of Yalensians which might have been called " the little 

 Academy," like that at Munich mentioned in the memoirs 

 of Louis Agassiz. The Yale Institute of Natural Science, 

 which afterwards became the Yale Natural History So- 

 ciety, had been established during Dana's cruise on the 

 Mediterranean. Its object was declared to be the pro- 

 motion of the study of nature. A student of medicine 

 from Brazil, whose name has disappeared from fame, ap- 

 pears to have been the originator, J. Francesco Lima, 

 who took his degree of M.D. in 1839 anc * soon returned 

 with his brother to South America. Among the other 

 members, better known, were Charles U. Shepard, after- 

 wards distinguished for his work in mineralogy and for 

 his superb collections of minerals and of meteoric stones; 

 Edward C. Herrick, already introduced to the reader; 

 James D. Whelpley, a promising mineralogist ; and Ben- 

 jamin Silliman, Jr., afterwards a professor of chemistry. 

 Four professors the elder Silliman and Denison Olm- 



33 



