Benjamin Silliman. 5 
the principal medium between those who dwelt in the academic 
shade and the great public.” Not unfrequently he was the col- 
lege solicitor, asking funds for the expansion of the institution, 
and never asking in vain. 
Although his services as a college officer were great, Prof, Sil- 
liman’s strongest claim to the gratitude of men of science rests 
upon the establishment, and the maintenance, often under very 
discouraging circumstances, of the “American Journal of Sci- 
ence.” ‘The history of this undertaking has already been given, 
in his own words, in the introduction to the 50th or Index vol- 
ume of the First series of the Journal; and it is for others, rather 
than for us, to give an estimate of his editorial services. It is but 
just, however, to call attention to a few circumstances, which 
all will regard as creditable to its founder. 
He had the sagacity to foresee, as long ago as 1818, the sco 
which such a magazine should take. The prospectus which 
then wrote is applicable almost exactly to our pages to-day. 
Experience has established the wisdom of the course which he 
marked out. 
He maintained the Journal, from the beginning, at bis own 
pecuniary risk. Its publication has often been a serious finan- 
cial burden, and in its most prosperous days has not yielded 
a fair return for editorial labor. But it has been continued, at 
this personal inconvenience, for the sake of American science, 
that the labors of our countrymen might be made known abroad, 
and the labors of Europeans understood in this country. 
The Journal has never been used for the benefit of any party 
or individual, but solely for the advancement and diffusion of 
Scientific truth. Its pages have been — open to free scien- 
tific discussion, with truth as the single end in view. 
‘he original investigations of Prof. Silliman are not numerous. 
In the early part of his career he began with energy some im- 
portant experiments and researches. He undertook a geological 
survey of Connecticut; he published a paper in conjunction 
with Prof. Kingsley on the famous Weston meteorite; he ap- 
plied the newly invented blowpipe of his friend, Dr, Hare, to 
the fusion of a variety of bodies, which were before regarded as 
infusible ; he demonstrated in the galvanic battery the transfer 
of particles of carbon from one charcoal point to the other; 
€ made scientific examinations of various localities interesting 
in their geological or mineralogical aspects. But he was too 
much needed elsewhere to be allowed to remain a close student 
in the laboratory, or to engage with constancy as an explorer ie 
the field of geological research. He has probably been a more 
_ useful man in the wider spheres of influence to which he was 
called than he could have been in a life devoted to scientific in- 
