114 Description and Analysis of the Sillimanite. 
other than the one which it now bears, been given to it, I 
could have had no objection to its appearance in this Jour- 
nal, and as the present name was bestowed, entirely with 
out my privity, and was already placed beyond my con- 
trol, before I was informed of the design, I have reluctant- 
ly yielded to Mr. Bowen’s request, supposing that a refusal 
under such circumstances, would bear less the appearance 
of a proper feeling, than of an over scrupulous peel 
Y. C. May, 1824. 
The mineral which is the subject of the following obser- 
vations, was discovered in the town of Saybrook, Connec- 
ticut, during the summer of the year 1817, at which time 
several specimens were brought from that locality, and de- 
posited in the cabinet of Yale College, by Dr. McClellan 
of Philadelphia. 
At the time of its discovery, some doubts existed as to 
the true nature of this substance ; several specimens, how- 
ever, having been shewn to the different mineralogists of 
this country, they pronounced it to be Anthophyllite, and it 
is mentioned as Anthophyllite in the last edition of Professor 
Cleaveland’s Mineralogy. A number of specimens of this 
substance, have also, at different times, been sent to the 
mineralogists of Europe, who have expressed the same 
opinion respecting If. 
I first became acquainted with this mineral during the 
winter of the year 1821, while engaged in the laboratory 
of Professor Silliman, and at his request, I then commenced 
an examination of it. I was, however, under the necessity of 
leaving New Haven before the analysis was completed, and 
have never had an opportunity, until lately, of resuming the 
subject. 
It is proper that I should here mention, that about the 
time when the examination of this substance was commen- 
ced, a descripition of its external characters was drawn up 
by Dr. T. D. Porter of New-Haven, who suspected it to 
be a new mineral, but as its external aspect was observed 
to correspond very nearly with that of the anthophyllite, 
and as Dr. Porter’s description was not accompanied by 
an analysis, there still remained a doubt as to its true na- 
ture. Hence the description was not published. 
