14 [ Senate 



Prof. SiLLiMAN, -who was graduated in 1796, carried, at a later day, 

 the whole mass of the minerals at Yale for examination and study 

 to Philadelphia, in a candlchox ! ! Most of the colleges in the 

 Northern States possessed still fewer minerals. The science itself 

 was in its very infancy, and books were not formed or circulated. 

 The world of minerals was a petrifying blank before the inquiring 

 eye. But the pioneers in Natural History had begun their benefi- 

 cent course, and their names will be honored by this intelligent 

 audience to-day. 



Prominent among them for his zeal, and his patronage of the 

 aspirants after knowledge, was William Maclure, author of the 

 first geological map of the United States, a work of indefatigable 

 effort; Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse of Cambridge University, who 

 had directed the attention and enlightened the taste of the public 

 on some parts of this subject; Dr. Adam SEVBERxof Philadelphia, 

 who, coming fresh from the school of Werner in Saxony, was able 

 greatly to extend the knowledge of the lovers of Nature's works ; 

 Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill of New-York, an ardent student and pa- 

 tron of natural science, who was the author of the first geological 

 report in our country*; Dr. A. Bruce of New- York, who published 

 the American Journal of Mineralogy in 1810, the first work of the 

 kind in the land; Col. George Gibbs, an ardent collector of mi- 

 nerals, and a zealous and patriotic amateur in the science : most 

 of these brought into the country from Europe, in the first decade 

 of this century, large collections of minerals and rich stores of 

 geological knowledge. These have long since ceased from their 

 honored labors. Two others remain, who belong to these pioneers 

 of Natural Science. 



Parker Cleaveland, Professor in Bowdoin College, who con- 

 ferred immense benefit upon our country by his excellent System 

 of Mineralogy and Elements of Geology, the great text-book of 

 this science for many years ; and Professor Silliman, perhaps the 

 youngest of the pioneers, who had begun his noble course, the 

 loved and honored Professor of Chemistry at Yale, who in a 



• " The Society for promoting agriculture, arts and manufactures," incorporated 

 in 1793, afterwards merged in the Albany Institute, appointed Dr. Mitchill Com- 

 missioner to examine and report on the " Minerals of the State." His report was 

 printed in the Medical Repository iu 1798 and 1799, and treated chiefly of the rocks j 

 but is the term geology used in it? 



