286 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



to me many of my letters, but, I should think, not all. 

 There are about twenty-five, five or six of which passed to 

 him in Spain through Paris ; the remainder are directed 

 to the city of Mexico ; they run from 1821 to 1838, from 

 my forty-second to my fifty-eighth year, the meridian and 

 best part of my life. They are, of course, occupied with the 

 busy avocations of that active period of my labors, in which 

 I might have truly said, " Omnia plena laboris." My letters 

 were also responsive to those of my correspondent'^ the 

 great subjects which occupied his mind, the education 

 of the young, the diffusion of useful knowledge, and the 

 elevation of the masses from ignorance, degradation, poverty, 

 and vice. His views were noble ; his fellow-creatures were 

 his family, and to carry out his large plans his ample means 

 were munificently bestowed. His own personal wants were 

 few and simple, and a very small part of his revenue sufficed 

 to supply them. Although some of his views were vision- 

 ary, they were benevolent, and he was one of the benefac- 

 tors of his race. 



As the companion of Mr. Maclure in his last visit to New 

 Haven, Dr. Cooper is entitled to be mentioned on this 

 occasion, as well as on account of some friendly epistolary 

 relations, for a time, subsisting between us. Dr. Cooper 

 came out from England, I believe, with Dr. Priestley, or soon 

 after, in 1794, during the exciting periods of the French 

 Revolution. Dr. Cooper resided with Dr. Priestley at or 

 near Northumberland on the Susquehannah River, and 

 was familiar with his scientific pursuits ; and being him- 

 self a ma*n of science, he occasionally wrote to me, and 

 always exhibited a vigorous and discriminating mind. I had 

 never seen him before his visit to New Haven with Mr. 

 Maclure in November 1828. On that occasion his man- 

 ners were mild and conciliating, and his appearance was 

 patriarchal and venerable, very different from what I had 

 imagined it to be. Ten years after, 1839, my third edition 

 of Bakewell's Geology appeared. In an appendix I had 



