638 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



Although the scientific work of Prof. SilHman extended through a round 

 fifty years, the number, variety, and laboriousness of his cqntributions show 

 how systematic and incessant his labors must have been. What he has accom- 

 plished, however, will be appreciated only by those who know how manifold were 

 his interests outside of science, by those who have learned the prodigality with 

 which he bestowed his time upon his pupils, by those who remember his remark- 

 able faithfulness to the humblest duties, even self imposed. 



I first sought his aid when interested scientifically and financially in 

 the new water gas manufacture. At once his own library and, through his 

 intercession, the laboratory of the New Haven Gas Company, to which he was 

 consulting chemist, was placed freely at my disposal and he undertook gra- 

 tuitously the direction of my investigations. In sickness and health, in rain 

 and shine, through a long year his kindly face brightened daily the doorway of 

 that remote and inaccessible room, "just for a little encouragement, you know," 

 as he would say when I insisted that no help would be needed to-morrow. I soon 

 had opportunity to disabuse my mind of any suspicion that this was through 

 partiahty for me, for it became evident that all his pupils were made to feel the 

 same privilege of trespassing on his time. Certain attorneys from New York 

 beset him one day to give evidence in a patent case, insisting that the large in- 

 terests of their client hung upon his testimony. But he answered very firmly that 

 while he had always felt that a scientific man ought to be the servant of the people, 

 especially of their courts, and while he would be very happy to assist in estab- 

 lishing the justice of their client's claims, of which he happened to be in a posi- 

 tion to be well assured, he was yet before all things a teacher, that he had a class 

 of six students looking to him for daily direction and advice, and that he could 

 not consent to leave New Haven for a month yet, or until his first business was 

 done. The court held the case open till that class had completed its course in 

 chemistry. 



There was another element of Prof. Silliman's character which contributed 

 not a little to his influence over his pupils. From youth he had been a traveler. 

 His work had called him into all portions of the Union, into contact with all 

 classes of society ; into the barracks of the mill hands, the cabins of the miners, 

 the salons of the proprietors. He had studied the petroleum of Southern Cali- 

 fornia, the mines of Oregon. He had written for New Orleans the first course 

 of lectures upon agricultural chemistry ever delivered in this country. In a high 

 social position, as representative of an old and honored family in his State, the 

 editor of a journal, in its department, facile princeps, one of the original fifty of 

 the National Academy, he had lived on terms of intimacy with the learning and 

 the culture of the land. He had visited abroad with his father, the honored 

 guest of the scientific societies of Europe, and in turn he had entertained at home 

 the most distinguished representatives of learning from England and the continent. 

 His mind, broad by cultivation and sympathetic by nature, had reaped the full 

 benefit of these associations, and with his manners, simple indeed but at all times 



