AMERICAN GEOLOGY MACLUREAN ERA, 1785-1819. 215 



bered, recognized this fall line, though it does not appear that lie put 

 a like interpretation upon the phenomenon. 



At this date, it is well to note, none of the sciences were taught in 



the colleges and other institutions of learning in America. Indeed, 



the general trend of public opinion was decidedly against the study of 



geology or the investigation of any question which 



Appointment of . , ° ■, 



Benjamin siiiiman might lead to the discovery ot supposed inconsistcn- 



at Yale, 1802. . . . \ L l 



cies in the Mosaic account ot creation or to conclusions 

 in any degree out of harmony therewith. The movement, therefore, 

 by Professor Dwight in 1798 toward the establishment in Yale College 

 of a department for the teaching of these subjects, was of the greatest 

 importance and of far-reaching consequences. This movement cul- 

 minated in 1802 with the appointment of Benjamin Siiiiman to the 

 professorship of chemistry and natural science in that institution. 

 Siiiiman was at that time about twenty-two years of age, onh T recently 

 admitted to the bar, and was serving as a tutor in law, with not even 

 the most rudimentary knowledge of the science he was to teach. He 

 wrote : 



The appointment was of course the cause of wonder to all and of cavil to political 

 enemies of the college. Although I persevered in my legal studies * * * I soon 

 after the confidential communication of President Dwight [informing him of his 

 probable appointment] obtained a few books on chemistry and kept them secluded 

 in my secretary, occasionally reading in them privately. This reading did not profit 

 me much. Borne general principles were intelligible, but it became at once obvious 

 to me that to see and perform experiments and to become familiar with many sub- 

 stances was indispensable to any progress in chemistry, and of course I must resort 

 to Philadelphia, which presented more advantage to science than any other place in 

 our country." 



To Philadelphia he accordingly went in the autumn of 1802, remain- 

 ing for nearly five months attending the lectures on chemistry given 

 by Dr. James Woodhouse in the Medical School of Philadelphia. His 

 own first lecture at Yale was delivered April 1, 1804, while in his 

 twenty-fifth year, in a room in Mr. Tuttle's building on Chapel street. 



Few geological papers bear Silliman's name, and he is better known 

 as a teacher and public lecturer. That which, however, has tended 

 more than anything else to keep him in constant remembrance is his 

 American Journal of Science, founded in 1818, some eight years after 

 the suspension of the American Journal of Mineralogy, to be noted 

 later. The publication has continued down to the present day, and it 

 is therefore one of the oldest and perhaps the most important geo- 

 logical periodical extant in America. 



Siiiiman resigned his professorship in 1819 and died on December 

 24, 1861, having through his own efforts as a teacher, but more par- 

 ticularly through his personal influence as a writer and lecturer, prob- 

 ably done more to advance the science of geology than any man of 

 his day. Nevertheless, looking down the vista of a hundred years of 



«G. P. Fisher, Life of B. Siiiiman. New York, 1866. 



