Silliman, Benjamin

Silliman, Benjamin, Jr. First Principles of Chemistry. Philadelphia Loomis and Peck, 1847. 

Chemist Benjamin Silliman, of New Haven, Connecticut, obtains valuable products by distilling petroleum. They include tar, gasoline, and various solvents. 

Pt. II of Benjamin Silliman, Jr. s First Principles of Chemistry (Philadelphia Loomis and Peck, 1847) is entitled "Chemical Philosophy," encompassing laws of combination, nomencla-... 

In 1844 Benjamin Silliman and Benjamin Silliman, Jr., published this historic list in their American Journal of Science and remarked in a footnote it has been supposed that the original specimen on which Mr. Hatchett made the discovery of columbic add was sent in this invoice, and that some hint as to the locality from whence it came might be had (39). The only entry the Sillimans could find in this list, however, that corresponded at all with Hatchett s description of columbite was No. 348. A black mineral, very heavy, from the inland parts of the country. They concluded that we must therefore rest content probably in ignorance of the exact locality of that interesting specimen, although mineralogists have, on what evidence does not appear, considered New London as the locality (39). 

Benjamin Silliman the Elder, 1778-1864. American chemist, geologist, mineralogist, and pharmacist. This miniature by Rogers was made in 1818, the year in which Silliman founded the American Journal of Science (thirteen years after he had studied in Edinburgh under T. C. 

Benjamin Silliman the Elder studied at Edinburgh in 1805. My earliest introduction, said he, among men of science was to Dr. Thomas Hope, Professor of Chemistry c. in the University of Edinburgh. I found him at his house in New Town and received a very kind and courteous welcome. Dr. Hope was a polished gentleman, but a little stately and formal withal.. .. He proved himself a model professor and fully entitled to act as a mentor. The professorship of chemistry was, at the time of my Edinburgh residence, very lucrative. The chair was so ably filled and the science so fully illustrated by experiments that the course... 

Samuel Guthrie, Jr. (cf. Archeion, 13, 11 ff. 119311), manufactured and sold in this country large quantities of a similar material. In a letter to Benjamin Silliman dated September 12, 1831 (Am. J. Sci. Arts, 21, 288 ff. [1832]), he says ... 

A textbook of great appeal to early American chemists is that of Frederick Accum, entitled A System of Theoretical and Practical Chemistry (item 20). Several early American chemists—Benjamin Silliman of Yale, James Freeman Dana of Dartmouth, John Gorham of Harvard—studied in his laboratory in London (J). One of the early American textbooks used in training medical students was that of Amos Eaton, a professor of natural philosophy and chemistry in the Vermont Academy of Medicine. His book is entitled Philosophical Instructor (item 30). 

At this time a New York lawyer, George H. Bissell, decided to exploit this mineral source. Along with James M. Townsend, a banker from New Haven, and Benjamin Silliman, a chemistry and geology professor at Yale University, he started the Pennsylvania Oil Company. 

FIGURE 49. The salamander (from Maier s Atalanta Fugiens, from The Roy G. Neville Historical Chemical Library, a collection in the Othmer Library, CHF), which represents the resistance to fire attributed to tbe Pbilosopber s Stone. Wben Yale cbemistry professor Benjamin Silliman visited tbe sweltering (115°F) laboratory of James Woodhouse of Pbiladelpbia in tbe summer of 1802, be referred to tbat salamander s borne (see page 392). 

The rigors of his work undoubtedly contributed to the untimely death of Dr. Woodhouse, who Silliman noted never made use of any of the facts revealed by chemistry, to illustrate the character of the Creator as revealed in his works and Dr. Benjamin Rush, his former teacher, simply called an open and rude infidel, in 1809 at the age of 39. 

Benjamin Silliman Church graduated in 1856 from Dartmouth College, Hanover NH, and after a course in civil engineering became a topographer on Croton Aqueduct for the water supply of New York City. 

Accum had a large private laboratory in London, in which he gave practical instruction. Benjamin Silliman senr. studied there in 1804-5, and later another famous American, the mineralogist James Freeman Dana. 

CaBj(SijO )j, Epidote Ca2(Al,Fe)3Si30jj(OH), Enstatite Mg Si O, Hemimorphite Zn SijO,(OH)jHjO, Fibrolite/Sillimanite Al SiO (after the name of Benjamin Silliman, professor of Chemistry at Yale University in 1824), Olivine, sulfur crystds, Topaz Al3SiO (F,OH)j, Zoisite CUjAlj (Si30jj)(0H) (after the name of the Australian mineralogist Von Zois). 

The first successful American scholarly journal devoted to chemistry was the American Chemist, which evolved from a supplement to an American reprint edition of the British Chemical News that was begun in 1868. Charles F. and William H. Chandler acquired the rights to the reprint edition and its supplement, out of which they launched the American Chemist in 1870. Prior to the Chandlers journalistic venture, the major indigenous outlet for chemical research was Benjamin Silliman s American Journal of Science. The most prestigious route for publication had been to send papers abroad to Liebig s Annalen der Chemie, Erdmann s Journal fur praktische Chemie, or. 

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