I4 6 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



at the suggestion of Colonel Gibbs, and with the approbation 

 of Dr. Bruce, started, in 1818, a journal intended to include 

 the entire circle of the physical sciences and their applica- 

 tions. This was Silliman's (now the American) Journal of Sci- 

 ence, which is still continued under the direction of the grand- 

 son of its founder. 



The courses of popular lectures on scientific subjects which 

 were conducted by Prof. Silliman in the different cities of the 

 United States, originated in 1808, when a course in chemistry 

 for ladies and gentlemen was proposed to him, and gladly 

 assented to, as a scheme in the interest of scientific progress. 

 A class of about forty-five persons was formed, and listened to 

 the instruction given them apparently with complete satisfac- 

 tion, for it appeared afterward, the lecturer remarks, in speak- 

 ing of the matter, that the course " turned on female hinges," 

 and " sentiment lubricated the joints. ... It was my province 

 to explain the affinities of matter, and I had not advanced far 

 in my pleasing duties before I discovered that moral affinities, 

 also moving without my intervention, were playing an impor- 

 tant part." One of the affinities involved the professor, and 

 his marriage to one of his hearers, Miss Harriet Trumbull, 

 daughter of the second Governor Trumbull, followed in the 

 course of the next year. Many years afterward he was in- 

 vited to deliver a course in Hartford the first out of New 

 Haven ; then followed courses in Lowell, Boston (where " the 

 Orthodox and Unitarian influence was united in his favour," 

 and where he returned to lecture in several successive years 

 afterward), other New England towns, and New York. In 

 1843 he lectured in Pittsburg, where he received most "vivid 

 demonstrations of kind and gratified feelings " ; the next year 

 in Baltimore, where he found that " people who came for once, 

 stayed " ; and afterward in Baltimore again, Mobile, New Or- 

 leans, Natchez, at Washington before the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion, and in St. Louis. The calls to lecture continued actively 

 through twenty-three years, from 1834 to 1857. In summing 

 up the results of these courses, Prof. Silliman expressed a 

 feeling of satisfactory assurance that he had popularized sci- 

 ence; that at no period of his life had his efforts been more 

 useful, both to his country and his family ; and that there was 

 no part of his professional career which he reflected upon with 

 more satisfaction. 



