THE SILLIMAN FOUNDATION 



In the year 1883 a legacy of about eighty-five thousand 

 dollars was left to the President and Fellows of Yale College 

 in the city of New Haven, to be held in trust, as a gift from her 

 children, in memory of their beloved and honored mother, Mrs. 

 Hepsa Ely Silliman. 



On this foundation Yale College was requested and directed 

 to establish an annual course of lectures designed to illustrate 

 the presence and providence, the wisdom and goodness of God, 

 as manifested in the natural and moral world. These were to be 

 designated as the Mrs. Hepsa Ely Silliman Memorial Lectures. 

 It was the belief of the testator that any orderly presentation 

 of the facts of nature or history contributed to the end of this 

 foundation more effectively than any attempt to emphasize the 

 elements of doctrine or of creed; and he therefore provided that 

 lectures on dogmatic or polemical theology should be excluded 

 from the scope of this foundation, and that the subjects should be 

 selected rather from the domains of natural science and history, 

 giving special prominence to astronomy, chemistry, geology, and 

 anatomy. 



It was further directed that each annual course should be made 

 the basis of a volume to form part of a series constituting a 

 memorial to Mrs. Silliman. The memorial fund came into the 

 possession of the Corporation of Yale University in the year 1901 ; 

 and the present volume constitutes the fifth of the series of 

 memorial lectures. 



