216 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1904. 



advancement, the spectacle of this young lawyer secluding in his desk 

 sundry books which he read privately in order to fit himself for the 

 position of a professorship in Yale is edifying to say the least. 



On January 1, 1800, the Connecticut Academy of Sciences had 

 addressed a circular letter to every town in the State, containing sub- 

 jects of inquiry arranged under thirty-two distinct heads, and request- 

 ing answers. To the fifth of these inquiries Silliman 



Silliman's ii> • i i i > i • 



Mineralogy of New responded in 1806 with a sketch of the mineralogy of 



Haven, 1806. x , ,. i i • i 



the town of JNew Haven, lnis was published in the 

 Transactions of the Society in 1810, and is of interest as being the 

 first attempt at a geological description of the region, as well as being 

 Silliman's first attempt at a geological survey. 



With much laborious argument he showed that the town of New 

 Haven is itself situated on an alluvial plain. East Rock he described 

 as a whinstone, trap, or basalt, identical with that from the Salisbury 

 Craig near Edinburgh, Scotland. 



The stone i.s reckoned among the argillaceous clays by some mineralogists and by 

 others among the siliceous. The predominant ingredient is certainly silex or flinty 

 earth, although when breathed upon it emits the smell of clay, which would induce 

 one to refer it to the argillaceous family. 



He would account for its presence on the supposition that it had — 

 actually been melted in the bowels of the earth and ejected among the superior 

 strata by the force of subterraneous fire, but never erupted like lava, cooling under 

 the pressure of the superincumbent strata and therefore compact or nonvesicular, its 

 present form being due to erosion. 



Thus, at this early date and with a very limited amount of experi- 

 ence, Silliman was able to discriminate between effusive and deep- 

 seated rocks. The rock resting upon the sandstone to the southeast 

 of East Rock he found somewhat puzzling. " We must pronounce it 

 granitic, although it is not a granite, and inclined to whin, although it 

 is not a whinstone, " he wrote, finally concluding that it formed a con- 

 necting link between granite and whinstone. Pine Rock and West 

 Rock were also identified as whin rock and basalt resting upon sand- 

 stone. Quartz and' sandstone found at Westfield and at the Derby 

 pike were referred to as "micacious and magnesian schistus." He 

 modestly concluded his paper by adding: 



If there are errors (in the above) they are not the result of indolent and remiss 

 inquiry, but of deficient information or erroneous judgment. 



In these same Transactions, under date of 1808, Silliman, in conjunc- 

 tion with Professor Kingsley, gave a very full account of the meteor- 

 ite that fell in Weston, Connecticut, the year previous. This was the 



first really scientific description of the phenomena 

 Metew-tte O, i808. attending the faH of one of these bodies, as well as of 



its mineral nature, that had, up to that time, been 

 given in America, and it attracted widespread attention. It was this 

 account concerning which Jefferson is said to have remarked: "It is 



