342 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



In the autumn of the same year, he accepted an 

 invitation to give a course of lectures in Lowell. 

 Among his auditors at one of these lectures was 

 Daniel Webster. 



I ought not to omit that the Hon. Daniel "Webster, then 

 in the very height of his power and fame, attended one of 

 my lectures on geology. The subject was diluvial action 

 and the deluge. As he lodged at our hotel I had an in- 

 terview with him after the lecture. He entered into the 

 subject with zeal, and discoursed upon it with energy and 

 eloquence, showing that his great mind had not overlooked 

 this subject ; and many years afterwards our conversation 

 was renewed. 



The Hon. Jeremiah Smith, colleague with the Hon. 

 Daniel Webster and Jeremiah Mason, in the famous cause 

 of Dartmouth College and the State of New Hampshire, 

 came to Lowell and delivered a lecture on the moral prin- 

 ciples and character of Washington. It was a beautiful 

 production, and to a gentleman who asked my opinion of it, 

 I replied that it went right to my heart. Mr. Smith has 

 much vivacity, and when my remark was reported to him, 

 he replied that it could not go to a better place. It was 

 one of those gay sallies which such men make without in- 

 quiring into their truth. 



Boston Course on Geology, March and April, 1835. So 

 long ago as when the Hon. Josiah Quincy was President 

 of the Boston Atheneum, I received, through him, an in- 

 vitation from the trustees of that institution to deliver in 

 their hall, for the public, a course of lectures on any subject 

 which I might choose. The proposition interested me deeply 

 as an unexpected honor. Being much inclined to accept 

 it, I consulted my colleagues, and they unanimously en- 

 couraged me to make the attempt. My course of instruc- 

 tion in Yale College at that time filled the entire season of 



