382 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



" Silently as a dream the fabric rose; 

 No sound of hammer or of saw was there ; 

 But, ice on ice, the well-adjusted parts 

 Were soon conjoined, nor other cement asked 

 Than water, interfused, to make them one." &c. 



My brother, from Brooklyn, was present, and hearing in 

 the morning that I had received an injury during the lec- 

 ture, said to his family that it could not be so, as he heard 

 me lecture to the end, and that it was concluded by poetry. 

 The injury made me lame, but no lecture was omitted. I 

 finished the courses both of the evening and the day, and 

 there was no occasion to mention the occurrence to the 

 audience. 



Mr. Silliman was called upon to open the Lowell 

 Institute, which had been established by the mu- 

 nificence of a citizen of Boston, as a means of public 

 instruction. For four successive years he had the 

 pleasure of presenting the truths of science to large 

 and approving audiences. These courses of lectures 

 he regarded as the crowning success of his profes- 

 sional life. In all of them he had the assistance 

 of his son. Mr. Silliman had been consulted by Mr. 

 John A. Lowell, the trustee of the Lowell fund, as 

 to the best mode of organizing the Institution. 



In consequence of previous correspondence, Mr. Lowell 

 came in the month of June, 1838, to my house ; an inter- 

 view took place in the library, and we occupied the greater 

 part of the forenoon in presenting views of what such an 

 institution ought to be, and in suggestions as to the lectures. 

 From the experience of thirty years in the departments of 

 science which had been committed to my care, I was able 

 to give Mr. Lowell exact information as to the necessary 

 apparatus, materials, and illustrations, with estimates of the 

 probable expense, or approximations to it. As I supposed 



