THE 



AMERICAN 

 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, &c. 



Aet. I. — Address before the Association of American Geologists 

 and Naturalists, assembled at Boston, April 24, 1842 ; by 



Prof. B. SiLLIMAN.* 



Gentlemen of the Association : — 



Ddring the past year, my labors have been, with few excep- 

 tions, confined to the study, the cabinet, and the laboratory ; while 

 their results, such as they are, have been presented in the Ameri- 

 can Journal of Science, in the lecture rooms of my own univer- 

 sity, or in the halls of several of our towns and cities. Since 

 our former meeting at Philadelphia, I have not enjoyed as many 

 opportunities as in gone-by years, of making original geological 

 explorations. In that time, I have been only two days in the 

 field, but those were days of peculiar interest, because they af- 

 forded me an opportunity of comparing my own views, respect- 

 ing a very remarkable region,! with those of one whose experi- 

 ence and knowledge confer peculiar value upon his opinions. 



Still, I could have much preferred, that the present duty should 

 have been assigned to some one of the able practical explorers 

 now before us : geologists not of the cabinet, merely, but fresh 

 from actual toil upon the broad field of nature ; fresh from explor- 

 ing tortuous river courses, intricate defiles, precipitous valleys, 

 mazy caverns, deep mines, impending sea cliffs, lofty mountain 

 tops, and alpine glaciers, with their cataracts, their avalanches, 



* Delivered in the Swedenborgian Chapel, on Tuesday evening, April 25, be- 

 fore the Association and the public. 



t The red sandstone and trap formation around New Haven. 

 ' Vol. xLiii, No. 2.— July-Sept. 1842. 28 



