370 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



ing ; his kindness of heart, and, above all, his great Christian 

 excellence, his peaceful and finished life, have made him to 

 me a model man." 



Two communications from cherished friends of 

 Professor Sillirnan, in which his traits are correctly 

 depicted, though in the warm colors of friendship, 

 will close this memoir. 



PROFESSOR C. U. SHEPARD TO G. P. FISHER. 



LONDON, August 10, 1865. 



MY DEAR PROFESSOR FISHER, Yours of the 14th 

 ultimo has just been forwarded to me from Gottingen. To 

 your request for a few reminiscences of Professor Silli- 

 man, I respond with the utmost pleasure. You ask me to 

 make them as personal as possible. Were I to consult my 

 feelings, they would be wellnigh filial. My first acquaint- 

 ance with his name goes back to the period when I had 

 just begun to read books of travel and history. Never 

 shall I cease to remember the strange delight with which 

 I pored over his journal of a residence in this land. It 

 introduced me to an entirely new world of ideas, to ob- 

 jects more grand than I had ever dreamed of, characters 

 who seemed superhuman, sciences incomprehensible, and 

 adventures by sea and by land that filled me with irresist- 

 ible longings. The perusal of the work imparted a color 

 to my entire 'existence. And, although nearly twenty 

 years elapsed before I met with the author, and not until 

 many years after the death of my father, so soon as I saw 

 him, my heart went out to meet him with the feelings of a 

 son. Our acquaintance originated in some contributions 

 to his " Journal of Science " which I had made while yet a 

 student in Amherst College. This had led to an exchange 

 of letters, and ultimately to a request of mine to become 

 a student in his laboratory. The proposal was kindly ac- 

 ceded to, and I soon found myself pleasantly located at 



