A century of science in America

by Unknown

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

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.

Early Science.—Looking far back into the past, it seems surprising that science should have had so late a growth, but the wonderful record of man’s genius in the monuments he erected and in architectural remains shows that the working of the human mind found expression first in art and further man also turned to literature. So far as man’s thought was constructive, the early results were systems of philosophy, and explanations of the order of things as seen from within, not as shown by nature herself. We date the real beginning of science with the Greeks, but it was the century that preceded Aristotle that saw the building of the Parthenon and the sculptures of Phidias. Even the great Aristotle himself (384–322 B. C.) though he is sometimes called the “founder of natural history,” was justly accused by Lord Bacon many centuries later of having formed his theories first and then to have forced the facts to agree with them.

The bringing together of facts through observation alone began, to be sure, very early, for it was the motion of the sun, moon, and stars and the relation of the earth to them that first excited interest, and, especially in the countries of the East, led to the accumulation of data as to the motion of the planets, of comets and the occurrence of eclipses. But there was no coördination of these facts and they were so involved in man’s superstition as to be of little value. In passing, however, it is worthy of mention that the Chinese astronomical data accumulated more than two thousand years before the Christian era have in trained hands yielded results of no small significance.

Doubtless were full knowledge available as to the science existing in the early civilizations, we should rate it higher than we can at present, but it would probably prove even then to have been developed from within, like the philosophies of the Greeks, and with but minor influence from nature herself. It is indeed remarkable that down to the time with which we are immediately concerned, it was the branches of mathematics, as arithmetic and geometry and later their applications, that were first and most fully developed: in other words those lines of science least closely connected with nature.

Of the importance to science of the Greek school at Alexandria in the second and third centuries B. C., there can be no question. The geometry of Euclid (about 300 B. C.) was marvelous in its completeness as in clearness of logical method. Hipparchus (about 160–125 B. C.) gave the world the elements of trigonometry and developed astronomy so that Ptolemy 260 years later was able to construct a system that was well developed, though in error in the fundamental idea as to the relative position of the earth. It is interesting to note that the Almagest of Ptolemy was thought worthy of republication by the Carnegie Institution only a year or two since. This great astronomical work, by the way, had no successor till that of the Arab Ulugh Bey in the fifteenth century, which within a few months has also been made available by the same Institution.

To the Alexandrian school also belongs Archimedes (287–212 B. C.), who, as every school boy knows, was the founder of mechanics and in fact almost a modern physical experimenter. He invented the water screw for raising water; he discovered the principle of the lever, which appealed so keenly to his imagination that he called for a ποῦ στῶ, or fulcrum, on which to place it so as to move the earth itself. He was still nearer to modern physics in his reputed plan of burning up a hostile fleet by converging the sun’s rays by a system of great mirrors.

To the Romans, science owes little beyond what is implied in their vast architectural monuments, buildings and aqueducts which were erected at home and in the countries of their conquests. The elder Pliny (23–79 A. D.) most nearly deserved to be called a man of science, but his work on natural history, comprised in thirty-seven volumes, is hardly more than a compilation of fable, fact, and fancy, and is sometimes termed a collection of anecdotes. He lost his life in the “grandest geological event of antiquity,” the eruption of Vesuvius, which is vividly described by his nephew, the younger Pliny, in “one of the most remarkable literary productions in the domain of geology” (Zittel).

With the fall of Rome and the decline of Roman civilization came a period of intellectual darkness, from which the world did not emerge until the revival of learning in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Then the extension of geographical knowledge went hand in hand with the development of art, literature, and the birth of a new science. Copernicus (1473–1543) gave the world at last a sun-controlled solar system; Kepler (1571–1630) formulated the laws governing the motion of the planets; Galileo (1564–1642) with his telescope opened up new vistas of astronomical knowledge and laid the foundations of mechanics; while Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, musician and true scientist, studied the laws of falling bodies and solved the riddle of the fossils in the rocks. Still later Newton (1642–1727) established the law of gravitation, developed the calculus, put mechanics upon a solid basis and also worked out the properties of lenses and prisms so that his Optics (1704) will always have a prominent place in the history of science.

From the time of the Renaissance on science grew steadily, but it was not till the latter half of the eighteenth century that the foundations in most of the lines recognized to-day were fully laid. Much of what was accomplished then is, at least, outlined in the chapters following.

Our standpoint in the early years of the nineteenth century, just before the American Journal had its beginning, may be briefly summarized as follows: A desire for knowledge was almost universal and, therefore, also a general interest in the development of science. Mathematics was firmly established and the mathematical side of astronomy and natural philosophy—as physics was then called—was well developed. Many of the phenomena of heat and their applications, as in the steam engine of Watt, were known and even the true nature of heat had been almost established by our countryman, Count Rumford; but of electricity there were only a few sparks of knowledge. Chemistry had had its foundation firmly laid by Priestley, Lavoisier, and Dalton, while Berzelius was pushing rapidly forward. Geology had also its roots down, chiefly through the work of Hutton and William Smith, though the earth was as yet essentially an unexplored field. Systematic zoology and botany had been firmly grounded by Buffon, Lamarck and Cuvier, on the one hand, and Linnæus on the other; but of all that is embraced under the biology of the latter half of the nineteenth century the world knew nothing. The statements of Silliman in his Introductory Remarks in the first number, quoted in part on a following page, put the matter still more fully, but they are influenced by the enthusiasm of the time and he could have had little comprehension of what was to be the record of the next one hundred years.

Now, leaving this hasty and incomplete retrospect and coming down to 1918, we find the contrast between to-day and 1818 perhaps most strikingly brought out, on the material side, if we consider the ability of man, in the early part of the nineteenth century, to meet the demands upon him in the matter of transportation of himself and his property. In 1800, he had hardly advanced beyond his ancestor of the earliest civilization; on the contrary, he was still dependent for transportation on land upon the muscular efforts of himself and domesticated animals, while at sea he had only the use of sails in addition. The first application of the steam engine with commercial success was made by Fulton when, in 1807, the steamboat “Clermont” made its famous trip on the Hudson River. Since then, step by step, transportation has been made more and more rapid, economical and convenient, both on land and water. This has come first through the perfection of the steam engine; later through the agency of electricity, and still further and more universally by the use of gasolene motors. Finally, in these early years of the twentieth century, what seemed once a wild dream of the imagination has been realized, and man has gained the conquest of the air; while the perfection of the submarine is as wonderful as its work can be deadly.

Hardly less marvelous is the practical annihilation of space and time in the electric transmission of human thought and speech by wire and by ether waves. While, still further, the same electrical current now gives man his artificial illumination and serves him in a thousand ways besides.

But the limitations of space have also been conquered, during the same period, by the spectroscope which brings a knowledge of the material nature of the sun and the fixed stars and of their motion in the line of sight; while spectrum analysis has revealed the existence of many new elements and opened up vistas as to the nature of matter.

The chemist and the physicist, often working together in the investigation of the problems lying between their two departments, have accumulated a staggering array of new facts from which the principles of their sciences have been deduced. Many new elements have been discovered, in fact nearly all called for by the periodic law; the so-called fixed gases have been liquefied, and now air in liquid form is almost a plaything; the absolute zero has been nearly reached in the boiling point of helium; physical measurements in great precision have been carried out in both directions for temperatures far beyond any scale that was early conceived possible; the atom, once supposed to be indivisible, has been shown to be made up of the much smaller electrons, while its disintegration in radium and its derivatives has been traced out and with consequences only as yet partly understood but certainly having far-reaching consequences; at one point we seem to be brought near to the transmutation of the elements which was so long the dream of the alchemist. Still again photography has been discovered and perfected and with the use of X-rays it gives a picture of the structure of bodies totally opaque to the eye; the same X-rays seem likely to locate and determine the atoms in the crystal.

Here and at many other points we are reaching out to a knowledge of the ultimate nature of matter.

In geology, vast progress has been made in the knowledge of the earth, not only as to its features now exhibited at or near the surface, but also as to its history in past ages, of the development of its structure, the minute history of its life, the phenomena of its earthquakes, volcanoes, etc. Geological surveys in all civilized countries have been carried to a high degree of perfection.

In biology, itself a word which though used by Lamarck did not come into use till taken up by Huxley, and then by Herbert Spencer in the middle of the century, the progress is no less remarkable as is well developed in a later chapter of this volume.

Although not falling within our sphere, it would be wrong, too, not to recognize also the growth of medicine, especially through the knowledge of bacteria and their functions, and of disease germs and the methods of combating them. The world can never forget the debt it owes to Pasteur and Lister and many later investigators in this field.

To follow out this subject further would be to encroach upon the field of the chapters following, but, more important and fundamental still than all the facts discovered and the phenomena investigated has been the establishment of certain broad scientific principles which have revolutionized modern thought and shown the relation between sciences seemingly independent. The law of conservation of energy in the physical world and the principle of material and organic evolution may well be said to be the greatest generalizations of the human mind. Although suggestions in regard to them, particularly the latter, are to be found in the writings of early authors, the establishment and general acceptance of these principles belong properly to the middle of the nineteenth century. They stand as the crowning achievement of the scientific thought of the period in which we are interested.

Any mere enumeration of the vast fund of knowledge accumulated by the efforts of man through observation and experiment in the period in which we are interested would be a dry summary, and yet would give some measure of what this marvelous period has accomplished. As in geography, man’s energy has in recent years removed the reproach of a “Dark Continent,” of “unexplored” central Asia and the once “inaccessible polar regions,” so in the different departments of science, he has opened up many unknown fields and accumulated vast stores of knowledge. It might even seem as if the limit of the unknown were being approached. There remains, however, this difference in the analogy, that in science the fundamental relations—as, for example, the nature of gravitation, of matter, of energy, of electricity; the actual nature and source of life—the solution of these and other similar problems still lies in the future. What the result of continued research may be no one can predict, but even with these possibilities before us, it is hardly rash to say that so great a combined progress of pure and applied science as that of the past hundred years is not likely to be again realized.

Scientific Periodical Literature in 1818.

The contrast in scientific activity between 1818 and 1918 is nowhere more strikingly shown than in the amount of scientific periodical literature of the two periods. Of the thousands of scientific journals and regular publications by scientific societies and academies to-day, but a very small number have carried on a continuous and practically unbroken existence since 1818. This small amount of periodical scientific literature in the early part of the last century is significant as giving a fair indication of the very limited extent to which scientific investigation appealed to the intellectual life of the time. Some definite facts in regard to the scientific publications of those early days seem to be called for.

Learned societies and academies, devoted to literature and science, were formed very early but at first for occasional meetings only and regular publications were in most cases not begun till a very much later date. Some of the earliest—not to go back of the Renaissance—are the following:

1560. Naples, Academia Secretorum Naturæ.

1603. Rome, Accademia dei Lincei.

1651. Leipzig, Academia Naturæ Curiosum.

1657. Florence, Accademia del Cimento.

1662. London, Royal Society.

1666. Paris, Académie des Sciences.

1690. Bologna, Accademia delle Scienze.

1700. Berlin, Societas Regia Scientiarum. This was the forerunner of the K. preuss. Akad. d. Wissenschaften.

The Royal Society of London, whose existence dates from 1645, though not definitely chartered until 1662, began the publication of its “Philosophical Transactions” in 1665 and has continued it practically unbroken to the present time; this is a unique record. Following this, other early—but in most cases not continuous—publications were those of Paris (1699); Berlin (1710); Upsala (1720); Petrograd, 1728; Stockholm (1739); and Copenhagen (1743).

For the latter half of the eighteenth century, when the foundations of our modern science were being rapidly laid, a considerable list might be given of early publications of similar scientific bodies. Some of the prominent ones are: Göttingen (1750), Munich (1759), Brussels (1769), Prague (1775), Turin (1784), Dublin (1788), etc. The early years of the nineteenth century saw the beginnings of many others, particularly in northern Italy. It is to be noted that, as stated, only rarely were the publications of these learned societies even approximately continuous. In the majority of cases the issue of transactions or proceedings was highly irregular and often interrupted.

In this country the earliest scientific bodies are the following:

Philadelphia. American Philosophical Society, founded in 1743. Transactions were published 1771–1809; then interrupted until 1818 et seq.

Boston. American Academy of Arts and Sciences, founded in 1780. Memoirs, 1785–1821; and then 1833 et seq.

New Haven. Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, begun in 1799. Memoirs, vol. 1, 1810–16; Transactions, 1866 et seq.

Philadelphia. Academy of Natural Sciences, begun in 1812. Journal, 1817–1842; and from 1847 et seq.

New York. Lyceum of Natural History, 1817; later (1876) became the New York Academy of Sciences. Annals from 1823; Proceedings from 1870.

The situation is somewhat similar as to independent scientific journals. A list of the names of those started only to find an early death would be a very long one, but interesting only historically and as showing a spasmodic but unsustained striving after scientific growth.

It seems worth while, however, to give here the names of the periodicals embracing one or more of the subjects of the American Journal, which began at a very early date and most of which have maintained an uninterrupted existence down to 1915. It should be added that certain medical journals, not listed here, have also had a long and continued existence.[^[1]]

Early Scientific Journals.

1771–1823. Journal de Physique, Paris; title changed several times.

1787–. Botanical Magazine. (For a time known as Curtis’s Journal).

1789–1816. Annales de Chimie, Paris. Continued from 1817 on as the Annales de Chimie et de Physique.

1790. Journal der Physik, Halle (by Gren); from 1799 on became the Annalen der Physik (und Chemie), Halle, Leipzig. The title has been somewhat changed from time to time though publication has been continuous. Often referred to by the name of the editor-in-chief, as Gren, Gilbert, Poggendorff, Wiedemann, etc.

1795–1815. Journal des Mines, Paris, continued from 1816 as the Annales des Mines.

1796–1815. Bibliothèque Britannique, Geneva. From 1816–1840, Bibliothèque Universelle, etc. 1846–1857, Archives des Sci. phys. nat. Since 1858 generally known as the Bibliothèque Universelle.

1797. Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry and the Arts (Nicholson’s Journal) London; united in 1814 with the Philosophical Magazine (Tilloch’s Journal).

1798–. The Philosophical Magazine (originally by Tilloch). This absorbed Nicholson’s Journal (above) in 1814; also the Annals of Philosophy (Thomson, Phillips) in 1827 and Brewsters’ Edinburgh Journal of Science in 1832.

1798–1803. Allgemeines Journal der Chemie (Scherer’s Journal). 1803–1806; continued as Neues Allg. J. etc. (Gehlen’s Journal). Later title repeatedly changed and finally (1834 et seq.) Journal für praktische Chemie.

1816–18. Journal of Science and the Arts, London. 181930, Quarterly J. etc. 1830–31, Journal of the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

1818. American Journal of Science and Arts until 1880, when “the Arts” was dropped, New Haven, Conn. First Series, 1–50, 1818–1845; Second Series, 1–50, 1846–1870; Third Series, 1–50, 1871–1895; Fourth Series, 1–45, 1896–June, 1918.

1818. Flora, or Allgemeine botanische Zeitung. Regensburg, Munich.

1820–1867. London Journal of Arts and Sciences (after 1855, Newton’s Journal).

1824–. Annales des sciences naturelles. Paris.

1826–. Linnæa, Berlin, Halle; from 1882 united with Jahrb. d. K. botan. Gartens.

1828–1840. Magazine of Natural History, London; united 1838 with the Annals of Natural History, and known since 1841 as the Annals and Magazine of Natural History.

1828–. Journal of the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, from 1826; earlier (1825) the American Mechanics Magazine.

1832–. Annalen der Chemie (und Pharmacie) often known as Liebig’s Annalen. Leipzig, Lemgo.

The Founder of the American Journal of Science.

The establishment of a scientific journal in this country in 1818 was a pioneer undertaking, requiring of its founder a rare degree of energy, courage, and confidence in the future. It was necessary, not only to obtain the material to fill its pages and the money to carry on the enterprise, but, before the latter end could be accomplished, an audience must be found among those who had hitherto felt little or no interest in the sciences. This great work was accomplished by Benjamin Silliman, “the guardian of American Science,” whose influence was second to none in the early development of science in this country. Before speaking in some detail of the early years of this Journal and of its subsequent history, it is proper that some words should be given to its founder.

Benjamin Silliman, son of a general prominent in the Revolutionary War, was born in Trumbull, Connecticut, on August 8, 1779. He was a graduate of Yale College of the class of 1796. Though at first a student of law and accepted for the bar in Connecticut, he was called in 1802 by President Timothy Dwight—a man of rare breadth of mind—to occupy the newly made chair of chemistry, mineralogy (and later geology) in Yale College at New Haven. To fit himself for the work before him he carried on extensive studies at home and in Philadelphia and spent the year 1805 in travels and study at London and Edinburgh, and also on the Continent. His active duties began in 1806 and from this time on he was in the service of Yale College until his resignation in 1853. From the first, Silliman met with remarkable success as a teacher and public lecturer in arousing an interest in science. His breadth of knowledge, his enthusiasm for his chosen subjects and power of clear presentation, combined with his fine presence and attractive personality, made him a great leader in the science of the country and gave him a unique position in the history of its development.

Much might be said of the man and his work, but, the best tribute is that of James Dwight Dana, given in his inaugural address upon the occasion of his beginning his duties as Silliman professor of geology in Yale College. This was delivered on February 18, 1856, in what was then known as the “Cabinet Building.” Dana says in part:

“In entering upon the duties of this place, my thoughts turn rather to the past than to the subject of the present hour. I feel that it is an honored place, honored by the labors of one who has been the guardian of American Science from its childhood; who here first opened to the country the wonderful records of geology; whose words of eloquence and earnest truth were but the overflow of a soul full of noble sentiments and warm sympathies, the whole throwing a peculiar charm over his learning, and rendering his name beloved as well as illustrious. Just fifty years since, Professor Silliman took his station at the head of chemical and geological science in this college. Geology was then hardly known by name in the land, out of these walls. Two years before, previous to his tour in Europe, the whole cabinet of Yale was a half-bushel of unlabelled stones. On visiting England he found even in London no school public or private, for geological instruction, and the science was not named in the English universities. To the mines, quarries, and cliffs of England, the crags of Scotland, and the meadows of Holland he looked for knowledge, and from these and the teachings of Murray, Jameson, Hall, Hope, and Playfair, at Edinburgh, Professor Silliman returned, equipped for duty,—albeit a great duty,—that of laying the foundation, and creating almost out of nothing a department not before recognized in any institution in America.

He began his work in 1806. The science was without books—and, too, without system, except such as its few cultivators had each for himself in his conceptions. It was the age of the first beginnings of geology, when Wernerians and Huttonians were arrayed in a contest.... Professor Silliman when at Edinburgh witnessed the strife, and while, as he says, his earliest predilections were for the more peaceful mode of rock-making, these soon yielded to the accumulating evidence, and both views became combined in his mind in one harmonious whole. The science, thus evolved, grew with him and by him; for his own labors contributed to its extension. Every year was a year of expansion and onward development, and the grandeur of the opening views found in him a ready and appreciative response....

And while the sciences and truth have thus made progress here, through these labors of fifty years, the means of study in the institution have no less increased. Instead of that half-bushel of stones, which once went to Philadelphia for names, in a candle-box, you see above the largest mineral cabinet in the country, which but for Professor Silliman, his attractions and his personal exertions together, would never have been one of the glories of old Yale....

Moreover, the American Journal of Science,—now in its thirty-seventh year and seventieth volume [1856],—projected and long-sustained solely by Professor Silliman, while ever distributing truth, has also been ever gathering honors, and is one of the laurels of Yale.

We rejoice that in laying aside his studies, after so many years of labor, there is still no abated vigor.... He retires as one whose right it is to throw the burden on others. Long may he be with us, to enjoy the good he has done, and cheer us by his noble and benign presence.”

In addition to these words of Dana, much of vital interest in regard to Silliman and his work will be gathered from what is given in the pages immediately following, quoted from his personal statements in the early volumes of the Journal.

The Early Years of the Journal.

In no direction did Silliman’s enthusiastic activities in science produce a more enduring result than in the founding and carrying on of the Journal. The first suggestion in regard to the enterprise was made to Silliman by his friend, Colonel George Gibbs, from whom the famous Gibbs collection of minerals was bought by Yale College in 1825. Silliman says (25, 215, 1834):

“Col. Gibbs was the person who first suggested to the Editor the project of this Journal, and he urged the topic with so much zeal and with such cogent arguments, as prevailed to induce the effort in a case then viewed as of very dubious success. The subject was thus started in November, 1817; proposals for the Journal were issued in January, 1818, and the first number appeared in July of that year.”

He adds further (50, p. iii, 1847) that the conversation here recorded took place “on an accidental meeting on board the steamboat Fulton in Long Island Sound.” This was some ten years after Robert Fulton’s steamboat, the Clermont, made its pioneer trip on the Hudson river, already alluded to. The incident is not without significance in this connection. The deck of the “Fulton” was not an inappropriate place for the inauguration of an enterprise also great in its results for the country.

In the preface to the concluding volume of the First Series (loc. cit.) Silliman adds the following remarks which show his natural modesty at the thought of undertaking so serious a work. He says:

Although a different selection of an editor would have been much preferred, and many reasons, public and personal, concurred to produce diffidence of success, the arguments of Col. Gibbs, whose views on subjects of science were entitled to the most respectful consideration, and had justly great weight, being pressed with zeal and ability, induced a reluctant assent; and accordingly, after due consultation with many competent judges, the proposals were issued early in 1818, embracing the whole range of physical science and its applications. The Editor in entering on the duty, regarded it as an affair for life, and the thirty years of experience which he has now had, have proved that his views of the exigencies of the service were not erroneous.

The plan with which the editor began his work and the lines laid down by him at the outset can only be made clear by quoting entire the “Plan of the Work” which opens the first number. It seems desirable also to give this in its original form as to paragraphs and typography. The first page of the cover of the opening number has also been reproduced here. It will be seen that the plan of the young editor was as wide as the entire range of science and its applications and extended out to music and the fine arts. This seems strange to-day, but it must be remembered how few were the organs of publication open to contributors at the time. If the plan was unreasonably extended, that fact is to be taken not only as an expression of the enthusiasm of the editor, as yet inexperienced in his work, but also of the time when the sciences were still in their infancy.

He says (1, pp. v, vi):