Home > Benjamin Silliman

Born in North Stratford, Connecticut , he was the son of Gold Selleck Silliman and his wife née Mary Fish, widow of John Noyes.

He was educated at Yale, receiving an AB degree in 1796 and an AM in 1799. He studied law with Simeon Baldwin from 1798-99 and became a tutor at Yale 1799-1802. He was admitted to the bar in 1802. President Timothy Dwight IV of Yale proposed that he equip himself to teach in chemistry and natural history and accept a new professorship at the university.

Silliman studied chemistry with Professor James Woodhouse in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and delivered his first lectures in chemistry at Yale in 1804. In 1805 he traveled to Edinburgh for further study.

Returning to New Haven, he studied its geology, and made a chemical analysis of the meteor that fell near Weston, Connecticut, publishing the first scientific account of any American meteor. He lectured publicly at New Haven in 1808 and came to discover many of the constituent elements of many minerals. As professor emeritus he delivered lectures at Yale on geology until 1855; in 1854 he became the first person to fractionate petroleum by distillation.

Silliman was an opponent of slavery and a supporter of Abraham Lincoln. He was the first president of the American Association for the Advancement of ScienceThe American Association for the Advancement of Science "Triple A-S" (AAAS), is the world's largest general scientific society, publisher of the journal Science''. Its mission is to advance science and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of ma. He founded and edited the American Journal of Science , and was appointed one of the corporate members of the National Academy of SciencesThe National Academy of Sciences (NAS in the United States is a government-established corporation supporting scientific research. Its official journal is the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences''. As its name suggests, it is the national acad by the U.S. Congress.

His first marriage was on 17 September 1809Events January 16 Peninsular War: The British defeat the French at the Battle of Corunna. February 3 Illinois Territory was created. February 11 Robert Fulton patents the steamboat. February 20 A decision by the Supreme Court of the United States states t to Harriet Trumbull , daughter of Connecticut governor Jonathan Trumbull, Jr.Jonathan Trumbull Jr. March 26, 1740- August 7, 1809), American politician, was the second Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Born in Lebanon, Connecticut, the second son of Jonathan Trumbull, Sr. eventual Governor of Connecticut and h. They had four children: one daughter married Professor Oliver P. Hubbard , and another married Professor James Dwight DanaJames Dwight Dana ( February 12, 1813 April 14, 1895) was an American geologist, mineralogist and zoologist. He made important studies of mountain-building, volcanic activity, and the origin and structure of continents and oceans. Dana was born in Utica,.

His second marriage was in 1851 to Mrs Sarah Isabella (McClellan) Webb , daughter of John McClellan .

Silliman died at New Haven.

One of Yale's residential colleges is named for him, as is a 3410- meterFor other uses of "metre" and "meter", see Metre (disambiguation). The metre is the basic unit of length in the International System of Units (SI: Systeme International d'Unites). It is defined as the length of the path travelled by light in absolute vacu (11,188 footA foot is a non- SI unit of distance or length. The popular belief is that original standard was the length of a man's foot. The average foot length is about 240 mm (9. 4 in) for current Europeans. About 996 of 1000 British men have a foot that is less th) mountain in Sequoia National Park and the mineral Sillimanite.