THE SILLIMAN FOUNDATION 



In the year 1883 a legacy of eighty 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 de- 

 signed 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 con-, 

 tributed 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 sub- 

 jects 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 Cor- 

 poration of Yale University in the year 1901 ; and the 

 present volume constitutes the thirteenth of the series 

 of memorial lectures. 



