!44 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



fessor as his earliest master in chemistry, and Princeton as his 

 first starting-point in that pursuit, although he had not an op- 

 portunity to attend any lectures there. Having attended two 

 winters in Philadelphia, he returned to New Haven and began 

 to write his lectures. His first lecture was delivered April 4, 

 1804, when he was twenty-four and a half years old, to a class 

 which included, among other men who afterward became dis- 

 tinguished, John C. Calhoun, Bishop Gadsden, and John Pier- 

 pont; the subject was the history and progress, nature and 

 objects, of chemistry. Four lectures were given in a week 

 sixty in the course and some notices of mineralogy were in- 

 cluded. 



In the meantime the corporation of the college had voted 

 to spend ten thousand dollars in Europe during the ensuing 

 year, in the purchase of books and philosophical and chem- 

 ical apparatus. Prof. Silliman applied for the privilege of 

 going as purchasing agent, suggesting that his salary, which 

 would be continued, and the agent's commission would pay 

 his expenses, and he would at the same time have an op- 

 portunity of improving in his profession. His proposition 

 was accepted ; armed with a multitude of letters of intro- 

 duction, the general effect of which he found to be equiv- 

 alent to an order " Sir : Please to give the bearer a dinner, 

 and charge the same to yours," etc. he spent a year in 

 Europe. He performed experiments with Frederick Accum, 

 the German chemist, and attended the lectures of Dr. 

 George Pearson on chemistry, materia medica, and thera- 

 peutics, in London ; heard Drs. Hope, Gregory, and Murray, 

 in chemistry and geology ; subscribed to Dr. Munroe's and 

 attended Dr. Barclay's courses in anatomy, at Edinburgh; 

 visited the Continent, and made the acquaintance of the most 

 eminent scientific men of the day. Geological science at that 

 time, he says, in his Reminiscences, " did not exist among us, 

 except in the minds of a very few individuals, and instruction 

 was not attainable in any public institutions." In Edinburgh 

 there were learned and eloquent geologists and lecturers, and 

 ardent and successful explorers, and the contest between the 

 Wernerians and the Huttonians was at its height. Prof. Silli- 

 man was interested in the discussion, and, giving his attention 

 to the subject, reached a standard of attainment in geology 

 which he believed he could not have gained at home. He read 



