salutary restraint, and upon dissolute and ambitious men a powerful reforming influence. Let every freeman, then, who would perpetuate the liberty and happiness of his country, and transmit to his descendants of distant generations the precious legacy which our fathers have sent down to us, inquire concerning the candidate for whom he is solicited to vote: Is he an enemy to the Bible, or to the doctrines and institutions of the Gospel?-is he a duellist, or an intemperate man, or a Sabbath-breaker, or dissolute, or dishonest ?-and if, in any of these respects, he be disqualified, let him withhold his vote, and give it to a better man-and it will go far to retrieve the declensions which have taken place, and to render righteousness and peace the stability of our times.

BENJAMIN SILLIMAN.

PROFESSOR BENJAMIN SILLIMAN, the son of G. S. Silliman, Esq., a lawyer of distinction in his day, was born in North Stratford, now Trumbull, Connecticut, on the 8th of August, 1779. In 1792, he entered Yale College, with which from that time he has been almost uninterruptedly connected. In 1799, he was appointed a Tutor in the College, and at the suggestion of its distinguished President, Dr. Dwight, he resolved to devote himself to chemistry. After studying the subject for some time, at New Haven, he spent two years in Philadelphia, to qualify himself more thoroughly in it, and, in 1804, delivered his first course of lectures to the students of Yale College. In 1805, he visited Europe, to purchase books and apparatus, and to attend the lectures of the distinguished Professors in Edinburgh and London. On his return home, he published an account of his journey, which was received with very great favor.

In 1818, Professor Silliman founded the "American Journal of Science and Arts," a work which has done more than any other to raise the reputation of our country for science, and to make her known and honored abroad, while it has placed the learned editor in the very front rank of scientific men, and will ever remain a permanent monument to his zeal and perseverance in his favorite study. Besides communicating with the public on scientific subjects through the press, he has frequently addressed popular audiences on the same, and always with great acceptance. His easy and dignified manners

bespeak the gentleman, born and bred, while his happy talent at illustration and tact in communicating knowledge, always render his lectures as pleasing as they are instructive.

In 1853, Prof. Silliman resigned his office as a Professor in Yale College, and was elected an Emeritus Professor. He was succeeded in the department of Geology, by Prof. James D. Dana, and in that of Chemistry, by his son, Prof. Benjamin Silliman, Junior. Notwithstanding his advanced years and laborious life, his vigor of mind and body remains unimpaired, and since his retirement from active duties in College, he has continued to take a deep interest in the progress of science at home and abroad. He has also become conspicuous among American citizens for the noble earnestness with which he came forward and united with others in the recent movements for opposing the further extension of slavery, and showing his warm sympathies with the free settlers of Kanzas.

Professor Silliman has fitly been called the "Father of American Science," and although others of his countrymen preceded him in the study of nature, no man probably has done so much as he to awaken and encourage students of science, to collect and diffuse the researches of American Naturalists, and to arouse in all classes of the community a respect for learning and a desire for its advancement.'

THE HARMONY BETWEEN SCIENCE AND REVELATION.

The subject of Geology is not one which can be advantageously discussed with the people at large. A wide range of facts, a familiarity with physical science, and an extensive course of induction, are necessary to the satisfactory exhibition of geological truths, and especially to establish their connection and harmony with the Mosaic history. It is a subject exclusively for the learned, or at least for the studious and the reflecting; but as regards their own mental furniture, it can no longer be neglected with safety by those whose province it is to illustrate and defend the sacred writings. The crude, vague, unskilful, and unlearned manner in which it has been

The following are the titles of most of Professor Silliman's separate publications: "American Journal of Science," 50 volumes, 1818-45. Second Series, by Silliman and Dana, still in progress; 24 volumes, issued down to 1857. "Journal of Travels in England, Holland, and Scotland, in 1805-6," 2 vols. Henry's Elements of Chemistry," edited with notes. "Bakewell's Geology," edited with notes and appendixes. "Elements of Chemistry, in the order of Lectures given in Yale College," 2 vols. "Visit to Europe, in 1851, 2 vols., six editions.

too often treated, when treated at all, by those who are, to a great extent, ignorant of the structure of the globe, or who have never studied it with any efficient attention, can communicate only pain to those friends of the Bible who are perfectly satisfied, after full examination, that the relation of geology to sacred history is now as little understood by many theologians and biblical critics, as astronomy was in the time of Galileo.

There is but one remedy; theologians must study geology, or, if they will not, or from peculiar circumstances cannot do it, they must be satisfied to receive its demonstrated truths from those who have learned them in the most effectual way, not only in the cabinet, but abroad on the face of nature, and in her deep recesses. They will then be convinced that geology is not an enemy, but an ally of revealed religion; that the subject is not to be mastered by mere verbal criticism; that faithful study must be applied to facts, as well as to words, and that there is, at most, only an apparent incongruity, an incongruity which vanishes before investigation.

The mode in which the subject is now treated, or rather neglected or spurned, by many theologians and critics (not by all, for there are honorable exceptions), is not safe, as regards its bearing on the minds of youth. If they go forth into the world in the stiffness of the letter, and without the knowledge or proper application of the facts, it is impossible that they should sustain themselves against those who, with great knowledge and no reverence, may too powerfully assail what they cannot defend.

As the case now stands, with respect to most theologians in this country, the geological arguments in support of the Mosaic history, although powerful and convincing, are unknown and neglected, or they are denied, slighted, and avoided; and of course they can be, and they actually are, by some few geologists, turned, with too much success, against the sacred records; it remains with the defenders of those records to say whether the purloined weapons shall be returned to the armory whence they were stolen, and from which they may be again drawn forth for efficient use in support of the cause of truth.

After a long course of careful study on this subject, the study of the earth in mines and mountains, as well as in books and cabinets, we feel it our duty to declare that this noble science merits not the neglect with which it is frequently treated, nor the reproaches and hostility with which it is too often assailed. This mode of treatment will not destroy the facts, or for a moment retard the progress of truth. Were the thunders

of the Vatican now levelled at geology, as they were two centuries ago at astronomy and some of its early cultivators, it would no more avail than it then did. The march of truth is onward, and onward it will go. Denunciation, neglect, or sueers will not arrest its course, nor can ignorance or misrepresentation long hold it in dishonor. The Christian world must and will admit its established truths, and these truths teachers must learn, or their pupils will leave them in the darkness which some appear to covet.

Kind communications and instructions will remove the doubts and fears of those who are anxious lest old foundations of faith should be disturbed; and they will perceive that the building does not totter to its fall, but that new buttresses and props have fixed it, more firmly than ever, on an immovable basis of physical as well as moral demonstration.

Philosophy of Geology.

THE MER DE GLACE.

Arrived upon its immense and cold bosom, we looked eagerly around, and saw that it was indeed a sea of ice; or rather, it is like a great river suddenly congealed in the midst of a tempest. By a little practice with our poles pointed with iron, we acquired confidence, and made excursions in various directions. This glacier is, indeed, a wonder. From the mountain top it descends more than twenty miles, and has an extent, as our guides assured us, of more than fifty, if all the ramifications are included; it reaches quite down into the valley of Chamouni. The breadth of this glacier, in that portion which was under our immediate inspection, is from half a mile to a mile. It is, at present, much divided by cross fissures or crevasses, which are so slippery that great care is requisite at all times to avoid falling into them. When they are concealed by snow, arched over them, the danger becomes imminent, and in such cases the cautious guides try the soundness of the footing by applying the iron-pointed alpenstock. The sides of the crevasses are of a splendid blue-green color, and the ice often contains pools of pellucid water; the more superficial cavities are little lakes, accessible without danger, and the water, from its purity and coldness, is very refreshing to the traveller. Rills of water, coursing over the surface, plunge into the crevasses and are lost, all but the musical murmur of their fall.

Even the masses, which externally are soiled and dirty, on

being broken exhibit pure and transparent ice, looking like the most perfect rock crystal. Every morning the hotels are supplied by resorting to the lower end of the glaciers. They need wish for nothing purer; and thus they have an unfailing supply from these great natural ice-houses-sources which are perennial and inexhaustible.

The first appearance of the glaciers is like that of a fearfully agitated ocean, tossed by violent, and conflicting, and eddying winds, congealed ere the billows have had time to subside, and thus preserving all its high ridges, its peaks, and deep hollows. Still, there is a degree of regularity in the confusion; the tumult has observed a law which has opened the fissures, in curves, parallel, and nearly at right angles to the rocky banks, the convexity being downwards from its source.

Visit to Europe in 1851.

JOSEPH T. BUCKINGHAM, 1779.

JOSEPH T. BUCKINGHAM, one of the most prominent journalists of New England, was born at Windham, Connecticut, on the 21st of December, 1779. His father, who kept a public house, died when he was but three years old, leaving a widow with ten children in the most destitute circumstances.' She continued her husband's business a short time, and then had to abandon it on account of ill health. She was received into the family of her friends, Mr. and Mrs. Lathrop, of Worthington, Massachusetts, and judicious disposition was made of the children. Joseph was bound, till he reached the age of sixteen, to a farmer, in whose family he acquired a tolerable knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic, and read whatever books came in his way. When his apprenticeship was ended, he obtained a situation in the printing office of David Carlisle, the publisher of "The Farmer's Museum," at Walpole, N. H. After being there a few months, he apprenticed himself in the office of the "Greenfield Gazette."

In 1800, when he attained his manhood, he went to Boston, where he soon found employment. In 1805, he commenced the publication, on his own account, of a small magazine, under the title of "The

'He had become impoverished by furnishing supplies for the continental army, as he received his pay in the paper money of the times, which depreciated to almost nothing.