Part 6

It is designed as a deposit for original American communications; but will contain also occasional selections from Foreign Journals, and notices of the progress of science in other countries. Within its plan are embraced

NATURAL HISTORY, in its three great departments of MINERALOGY, BOTANY, and ZOOLOGY;

CHEMISTRY and NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, in their various branches: and MATHEMATICS, pure and mixed.

It will be a leading object to illustrate AMERICAN NATURAL HISTORY, and especially our MINERALOGY and GEOLOGY.

The APPLICATIONS of these sciences are obviously as numerous as physical arts, and physical wants; for no one of these arts or wants can be named which is not connected with them.

While SCIENCE will be cherished for its own sake, and with a due respect for its own inherent dignity; it will also be employed as the handmaid to the Arts. Its numerous applications to AGRICULTURE, the earliest and most important of them; to our MANUFACTURES, both mechanical and chemical; and to our DOMESTIC ECONOMY, will be carefully sought out, and faithfully made.

It is also within the design of this Journal to receive communications on MUSIC, SCULPTURE, ENGRAVING, PAINTING, and generally on the fine and liberal, as well as useful arts;

On Military and Civil Engineering, and the art of Navigation.

Notices, Reviews, and Analyses of new scientific works, and of new Inventions, and Specifications of Patents;

Biographical and Obituary Notices of scientific men; essays on COMPARATIVE ANATOMY and PHYSIOLOGY, and generally on such other branches of medicine as depend on scientific principles;

Meteorological Registers, and Reports of Agricultural Experiments: and we would leave room also for interesting miscellaneous things, not perhaps exactly included under either of the above heads.

Communications are respectfully solicited from men of science, and from men versed in the practical arts.

Learned Societies are invited to make this Journal, occasionally, the vehicle of their communications to the Public.

The editor will not hold himself responsible for the sentiments and opinions advanced by his correspondents; but he will consider it as an allowed liberty to make slight verbal alterations, where errors may be presumed to have arisen from inadvertency.”

In the “Advertisement” which precedes the above statement in the first number, the editor remarks somewhat naïvely that he “does not pledge himself that all the subjects shall be touched upon in every number. This is plainly impossible unless every article should be very short and imperfect....”

The whole subject is discussed in all its relations in the “Introductory Remarks” which open the first volume. No apology is needed for quoting at considerable length, for only in this way can the situation be made clear, as seen by the editor in 1818. Further we gain here a picture of the intellectual life of the times and, not less interesting, of the mind and personality of the writer. With a frank kindliness, eminently characteristic of the man, as will be seen, he takes the public fully into his confidence. In the remarks made in subsequent volumes,—also extensively quoted—the vicissitudes in the conduct of the enterprise are brought out and when success was no longer doubtful, there is a tone of quiet satisfaction which was also characteristic and which the circumstances fully justified.

The INTRODUCTORY REMARKS begin as follows:

The age in which we live is not less distinguished by a vigorous and successful cultivation of physical science, than by its numerous and important applications to the practical arts, and to the common purposes of life.

In every enlightened country, men illustrious for talent, worth and knowledge, are ardently engaged in enlarging the boundaries of natural science; and the history of their labors and discoveries is communicated to the world chiefly through the medium of scientific journals. The utility of such journals has thus become generally evident; they are the heralds of science; they proclaim its toils and its achievements; they demonstrate its intimate connection as well with the comfort, as with the intellectual and moral improvement of our species; and they often procure for it enviable honors and substantial rewards.

Mention is then made of the journals existing in England and France in 1818 “which have long enjoyed a high and deserved reputation.” He then continues:

From these sources our country reaps and will long continue to reap, an abundant harvest of information: and if the light of science, as well as of day, springs from the East, we will welcome the rays of both; nor should national pride induce us to reject so rich an offering.

But can we do nothing in return?

In a general diffusion of useful information through the various classes of society, in activity of intellect and fertility of resource and invention, producing a highly intelligent population, we have no reason to shrink from a comparison with any country. But the devoted cultivators of science in the United States are comparatively few: they are, however, rapidly increasing in number. Among them are persons distinguished for their capacity and attainments, and, notwithstanding the local feelings nourished by our state sovereignties, and the rival claims of several of our larger cities, there is evidently a predisposition towards a concentration of effort, from which we may hope for the happiest results, with regard to the advancement of both the science and reputation of our country.

Is it not, therefore, desirable to furnish some rallying point, some object sufficiently interesting to be nurtured by common efforts, and thus to become the basis of an enduring, common interest? To produce these efforts, and to excite this interest, nothing, perhaps, bids fairer than a SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL.

The valuable work already accomplished by various medical journals is then spoken of and particularly that of the first scientific periodical in the United States, Bruce’s Mineralogical Journal. This, as Silliman says (=1=, p. 3, 1818), although “both in this country and in Europe received in a very flattering manner,” did not survive the death of its founder, and only a single volume of 270 pages appeared (1810–1813).

Silliman continues:

No one, it is presumed, will doubt that a journal devoted to science, and embracing a sphere sufficiently extensive to allure to its support the principal scientific men of our country, is greatly needed; if cordially supported, it will be successful, and if successful, it will be a great public benefit.

Even a failure, in so good a cause, (unless it should arise from incapacity or unfaithfulness,) cannot be regarded as dishonourable. It may prove only that the attempt was premature, and that our country is not yet ripe for such an undertaking; for without the efficient support of talent, knowledge, and money, it cannot long proceed. No editor can hope to carry forward such a work without the active aid of scientific and practical men; but, at the same time, the public have a right to expect that he will not be sparing of his own labour, and that his work shall be generally marked by the impress of his own hand. To this extent the editor cheerfully acknowledges his obligations to the public; and it will be his endeavour faithfully to redeem his pledge.