'660 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



Still a third for the National Academy of Sciences by the late Professor B. Silli- 

 man. In fact, one of the last literary labors of Professor Silliman was the prepa- 

 ration of this memoir to his old friend and colleague, and almost his last energies 

 were given to directing the completion of the medal which is, through the liber- 

 ality of Mrs. Smith, his devoted widow, to be presented to discoverers in the 

 study of meteoric bodies as the "J. Lawrence Smith Medal." 



Beginning life as a civil engineer, he devoted himself earnestly to acquiring 

 a complete knowledge of his profession, but finding it not altogether to his taste 

 he abandoned it and studied medicine, giving six years to it in the best schools 

 of this country and Europe. Returning home at the age of twenty-six, he com- 

 menced lecturing in the medical college at Charleston. From that time forth he 

 was a teacher; a portion of the time in the University of Virginia and afterwards 

 in the University of Louisville. He was appointed at the age of twenty-eight, 

 at the request of the Sultan of Turkey, to teach the agriculturalists of that country 

 in cotton culture, and was subsequently made a government mining engineer by 

 the Sultan, in which position he was so serviceable to that country that he was 

 ihonored with numerous decorations and costly presents. 



His researches in chemistry and mineralogy were published from time to 

 time in Silliman^ s /ournal, the American Chemist^ Cosmos, the Proceedings of the 

 American Association, etc., as well as in several of the principal French and 

 German scientific periodicals of the day, and were regarded as valuable contri- 

 butions to knowledge. His collection of meteorites is one of the most extensive 

 in the world, and he was an acknowledged authority on this subject. 



His original researches number about one hundred and fifty, while his lect- 

 ures, addresses, scientific and secular papers amount to many more than this. 

 Aside from his professional labors of all kinds, his hfe abounded in beneficent 

 acts, and he was able to say at its close, "Life has been very sweet to me. It 

 comforts me. How I pity those to whom memory brings no pleasure." 



Geological Excursions, or the Rudiments of Geology for Young Learn" 

 ERS: Alexander Winchell, LL. D. i2mo., pp. 234. Illustrated. S. C. 

 Griggs & Co., Chicago, 1884. For sale by M. H. Dickinson, $1.50. 



Of all of Dr. Winchell's works this simple book for children is likely to ac- 

 compHsh the most good, from the fact that it begins at the right place, — in vir- 

 gin soil — so to speak ; where there is nothing to be unlearned and where the 

 good seed will take firm root and bring forth good fruit. The teaching of geology 

 is usually postponed until "college days " and there the whole science is crowded 

 into a few months at the rate of about two lectures a week and — at least in our 

 own case — without specimens or practical field illustration. Every man remem- 

 bers his youthful collections of " petrified wasps' nests," "funny stones," etc., 

 and how easy it would hav,e been to have crystallized his enthusiastic interest 

 and admiration into actual practical knowledge at that time, whereas in most 



