A Century of Science in America

Part 1

YALE UNIVERSITY MRS. HEPSA ELY SILLIMAN MEMORIAL LECTURES

In the year 1883 a legacy of eighty thousand dollars was left to the President and Fellows of Yale College in the city of New Haven, to be held in trust, as a gift from her children, in memory of their beloved and honored mother, Mrs. Hepsa Ely Silliman.

On this foundation Yale College was requested and directed to establish an annual course of lectures designed to illustrate the presence and providence, the wisdom and goodness of God, as manifested in the natural and moral world. These were to be designated as the Mrs. Hepsa Ely Silliman Memorial Lectures. It was the belief of the testator that any orderly presentation of the facts of nature or history contributed to the end of this foundation more effectively than any attempt to emphasize the elements of doctrine or of creed; and he therefore provided that lectures on dogmatic or polemical theology should be excluded from the scope of this foundation, and that the subjects should be selected rather from the domains of natural science and history, giving special prominence to astronomy, chemistry, geology, and anatomy.

It was further directed that each annual course should be made the basis of a volume to form part of a series constituting a memorial to Mrs. Silliman. The memorial fund came into the possession of the Corporation of Yale University in the year 1901; and the present volume constitutes the fourteenth of the series of memorial lectures.

SILLIMAN MEMORIAL LECTURES

PUBLISHED BY YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS

ELECTRICITY AND MATTER. By JOSEPH JOHN THOMSON, D.S.C., L.L.D, PH.D., F.R.S., Fellow of Trinity College and Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics, Cambridge University.

(Fourth printing.) Price $1.50 net.

THE INTEGRATIVE ACTION OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. By CHARLES S. SHERRINGTON, D.SC., M.D., HON. LL.D. TOR., F.R.S., Holt Professor of Physiology, University of Liverpool.

(Fifth Printing.) Price $5.00 net.

RADIOACTIVE TRANSFORMATIONS. By ERNEST RUTHERFORD, D.SC, LL.D., F.R.S., Macdonald Professor of Physics, McGill University.

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EXPERIMENTAL AND THEORETICAL APPLICATIONS OF THERMODYNAMICS TO CHEMISTRY. By DR. WALTER NERNST, Professor and Director of the Institute of Physical Chemistry in the University of Berlin.

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PROBLEMS OF GENETICS. By WILLIAM BATESON, M.A., F.R.S., Director of the John Innes Horticultural Institution, Merton Park, Surrey, England.

(Second printing.) Price $5.00 net.

STELLAR MOTIONS. With Special Reference to Motions Determined by Means of the Spectrograph. By WILLIAM WALLACE CAMPBELL, SO.D, LL.D., Director of the Lick Observatory, University of California.

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THEORIES OF SOLUTIONS. By SVANTE ARRHENIUS, PH.D., SC.D., M.D., Director of the Physico-Chemical Department of the Nobel Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.

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IRRITABILITY. A Physiological Analysis of the General Effect of Stimuli in Living Substances. By MAX VERWORN, M.D., PH.D., Professor at Bonn Physiological Institute.

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PROBLEMS OF AMERICAN GEOLOGY. By WILLIAM NORTH RICE, FRANK D. ADAMS, ARTHUR P. COLEMAN, CHARLES D. WALCOTT, WALDEMAR LINDGREN, FREDERICK LESLIE RANSOME, AND WILLIAM D. MATTHEW.

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THE PROBLEM OF VOLCANISM. By JOSEPH PAXSON IDDINGS, PH.D., SC.D.

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ORGANISM AND ENVIRONMENT AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE PHYSIOLOGY OF BREATHING. By JOHN SCOTT HALDANE, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., Fellow of New College, Oxford University.

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Part 2

A CENTURY OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA

A CENTURY OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE 1818–1918

EDWARD SALISBURY DANA · CHARLES SCHUCHERT HERBERT E. GREGORY · JOSEPH BARRELL · GEORGE OTIS SMITH RICHARD SWANN LULL · LOUIS V. PIRSSON WILLIAM E. FORD · R. B. SOSMAN · HORACE L. WELLS HARRY W. FOOTE · LEIGH PAGE · WESLEY R. COE AND GEORGE L. GOODALE

NEW HAVEN YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON · HUMPHREY MILFORD · OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS MDCCCCXVIII

COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS

PREFATORY NOTE

The present book commemorates the one-hundredth anniversary of the founding of the American Journal of Science by Benjamin Silliman in July, 1818. The opening chapter gives a somewhat detailed account of the early days of the Journal, with a sketch of its subsequent history. The remaining chapters are devoted to the principal branches of science which have been prominent in the pages of the Journal. They have been written with a view to showing in each case the position of the science in 1818 and the general progress made during the century; special prominence is given to American science and particularly to the contributions to it to be found in the Journal’s pages. References to specific papers in the Journal are in most cases included in the text and give simply volume, page, and date, as (=24=, 105, 1833); when these and other references are in considerable number they have been brought together as a Bibliography at the end of the chapter.

The entire cost of the present book is defrayed from the income of the Mrs. Hepsa Ely Silliman Memorial Fund, established under the will of Augustus Ely Silliman, a nephew of Benjamin Silliman, who died in 1884. Certain of the chapters here printed have been made the basis of a series of seven Silliman Lectures in accordance with the terms of that gift. The selection of these lectures has been determined by the convenience of the gentlemen concerned and in part also by the nature of the subject.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Prefatory Note vii

I. The American Journal of Science from 1818 to 1918. Edward Salisbury Dana 13

II. A Century of Geology: The Progress of Historical Geology in North America. Charles Schuchert 60

III. A Century of Geology: Steps of Progress in the Interpretation of Land Forms. Herbert E. Gregory 122

IV. A Century of Geology (continued): The Growth of Knowledge of Earth Structure. Joseph Barrell 153

V. A Century of Government Geological Surveys. George Otis Smith 193

VI. On the Development of Vertebrate Paleontology. Richard Swann Lull 217

VII. The Rise of Petrology as a Science. Louis V. Pirsson 248

VIII. The Growth of Mineralogy from 1818 to 1918. William E. Ford 268

IX. The Work of the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. R. B. Sosman 284

X. The Progress of Chemistry during the Past One Hundred Years. Horace L. Wells and Harry W. Foote 288

XI. A Century’s Progress in Physics. Leigh Page 335

XII. A Century of Zoology in America. Wesley R. Coe 391

XIII. The Development of Botany since 1818. George L. Goodale 439

PORTRAITS

Benjamin Silliman Frontispiece From a painting by G. S. Hubbard, Esq., in possession of Miss Henrietta W. Hubbard Benjamin Silliman, Jr. opposite page 28 James D. Dana „ „ 36 Edward S. Dana „ „ 48 Wolcott Gibbs „ „ 52 James Hall „ „ 84 G. K. Gilbert „ „ 140 Edward Hitchcock „ „ 156 O. C. Marsh „ „ 232 F. V. Hayden „ „ 196 J. W. Powell „ „ 204 Clarence King „ „ 208 George J. Brush „ „ 276 J. Willard Gibbs „ „ 324 H. A. Newton „ „ 336 James Clerk Maxwell „ „ 348 Louis Agassiz „ „ 404 Thomas H. Huxley „ „ 410 A. E. Verrill „ „ 412 Asa Gray „ „ 444 Charles Darwin „ „ 452

A CENTURY OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA

I THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE FROM 1818 TO 1918

Part 3

By EDWARD S. DANA

Introduction.

In July, 1818, one hundred years ago, the first number of the American Journal of Science and Arts was given to the public. This is the only scientific periodical in this country to maintain an uninterrupted existence since that early date, and this honor is shared with hardly more than half a dozen other independent scientific periodicals in the world at large. Similar publications of learned societies for the same period are also very few in number.

It is interesting, on the occasion of this centenary, to glance back at the position of science and scientific literature in the world’s intellectual life in the early part of the nineteenth century, and to consider briefly the marvelous record of combined scientific and industrial progress of the hundred years following—subjects to be handled in detail in the succeeding chapters. It is fitting also that we should recall the man who founded the Journal, the conditions under which he worked, and the difficulties he encountered. Finally, we must review, but more briefly, the subsequent history of what has so often been called after its founder, “Silliman’s Journal.”

The nineteenth century, and particularly the hundred years in which we are now interested, must always stand out in the history of the world as the period which has combined the greatest development in all departments of science with the most extraordinary industrial progress. It was not until this century that scientific investigation used to their full extent the twin methods of observation and experiment. In cases too numerous to mention they have given us first, a tentative hypothesis; then, through the testing and correcting of the hypothesis by newly acquired data, an accepted theory has been arrived at; finally, by the same means carried further has been established one of nature’s laws.

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