The Complete Correspondence of Edward Hitchcock and Benjamin Silliman, 1817-1863 The American journal of science and the rise of American Geology Transcribed and annotated by Robert L. Herbert, with an introductory essay Preface Part One: Geology and the first years of the American journal of science, 1817-1830 The American journal of science, 1817-1823 Hitchcock’s Sketch of the geology, 1823-1824 Hitchcock’s Utility of natural history, 1823 Buckland’s Reliquiae diluvianae Hitchcock at Amherst College Scrope and Cordier: the fiery earth, 1825-1829 Silliman and Hitchcock in 1830 Looking back from 1830 Part Two: Hitchcock’s prime decade, 1831-1841 Silliman in 1833 Hitchcock, 1831-1833 Hitchcock and Silliman, 1833-1835 1836: Hitchcock’s “Sandstone Bird” The Mosaic controversy, 1837-1839 Hitchcock’s geology, 1836-1839 Hitchcock’s growing renown, 1840 and 1841 Part Three: The final decades, 1842-1863 Silliman, 1842-1864 Hitchcock’s life, 1842-1864 Science and the Bible, 1842-1863 Rocky strata and drifting boulders, 1842-1863 Hitchcock’s controversy with James Deane, 1842-1845 Fossil sandstone impressions, 1844-1863 Appendix A: William Maclure Appendix B: Amos Eaton The letters Bibliography Hitchcock-Silliman letters 2 Preface I began this project in order to trace Edward Hitchcock’s apprenticeship to geology, but it soon turned in directions I hadn’t anticipated. Benjamin Silliman’s heirs had sent back to Amherst College most of the letters he had received from Hitchcock, so I was lucky to have access to both sides of their correspondence in the college’s Archives and Special Collections. I also located a few more letters from other archives.1 Because Silliman’s handwriting is difficult, I had to transcribe his letters just to be sure of their content. By then I was so intrigued by the back-and-forth between the two men that I decided it would be an interesting venture to transcribe and annotate the whole correspondence. It begins with the first years of Silliman’s American journal of science, the premier American scientific review; it’s constantly referred to in the two men’s letters. Their correspondence proves to be an ideal vehicle for studying American geology, then in its infancy; Hitchcock was one of Silliman’s steadiest reviewers. I learned a lot about the two men’s ideas, and also a great deal about the other contributors to Silliman’s journal. Two of his writers, William Maclure and Amos Eaton, both major figures of those years, unwittingly revealed themselves in their articles.2 Their foibles, indeed their flaws, are laid bare, so they deserve more than the occasional footnote I’ve given other contributors. I’ve therefore appended separate short accounts of what a close reading of Silliman’s journal tells about those two geologists. Comparisons with them are valuable ways of locating Hitchcock in the evolution of geology from 1817 to the 1830s. The Hitchcock-Silliman letters deal almost exclusively with professional concerns. Little is said about the two men’s private lives except indirectly, and very little about religion, aside from brief exchanges about the “Mosaic controversy,” the supposed opposition of new geology to the literal reading of Genesis. This controversy took on great importance in their publications as will be made clear. Of interest to mineralogists are the accounts of several minerals that Hitchcock first identified in Massachusetts, and of the specimens he sent to Silliman. Both men wrote frequently about the geological maps that Hitchcock was making of Massachusetts in 1818, 1822- 1823, 1830, and 1841. He located and described various strata and fossils, including sandstone animal tracks as well as fossil fish that he shipped to Silliman. For the economic historian, there is much to learn about shipping specimens and letters by water and land between Amherst and New Haven. Botanists will take an interest in Hitchcock’s identification of native plants. Historians of science and education will be intrigued and no little amused by the two men’s chemical laboratories, their supplies, arrangements, and apparatus. Galvanic electricity loomed large in the 1820s when Silliman’s classmate Robert Hare sent plans for his battery-run instruments, his “deflagrator” and his “calorimotor,” as well as for his oxy-hydrogen blowpipe. The letters tell about their uses and the accidents that both Silliman and Hitchcock suffered. The chief value of the letters and of this essay lies in the study of the rapid evolution of early modern geology in the United States. Hitchcock’s reviews of the latest European geological publications and the consequent growth of his own views chart the changes from the early 1820s to the early 1840s. The letters deal with the aftermath of the turn-of-century controversy between the geological concepts of the Scot James Hutton and the German Abraham Werner. Surprisingly, despite his devotion to theology, Hitchcock proves to have been ahead of other American geologists, including Silliman, because he abandoned Werner’s ideas while he adapted European concepts to American geology. The correspondence is rich in news about or from scientific colleagues on the Hutton-Werner dispute and on many contemporary issues. Silliman’s cosmopolitan travels and his role as editor meant frequent and sometimes revealing references to foreign savants, including William Buckland, W. D. Conybeare, Gideon Mantell, Adam Sedgwick, and P. L. A. Cordier. Also appearing in the correspondence are many American scientists, among them Chester Dewey, Eaton, Maclure, John Torrey, and John White Webster, all of whom were known to both Silliman and Hitchcock. In effect, the forty-six years of their correspondence are a treasure-trove. In my introductory essay, Hitchcock takes a more prominent place than Silliman. For one thing, Silliman was far better known and studied, whereas Hitchcock long ago dropped out of the ranks of major geologists. George P. Merrill’s The first one hundred years of American geology of 1924 is the last broad history that gave Hitchcock a leading role. My essay and the letters therefore serve the remedial purpose of restoring the Amherst professor to the attention he deserves. As we shall see -- and it’s a considerable surprise -- he was much more an 1 I’m grateful for the generous response to my inquiries by colleagues at Amherst College’s Archives and Special Collections: Margaret R. Dakin, Daria D’Arienzo, former head, Michael Kelly, current head, Peter Nelson, Mariah Sakrejda-Leavitt, and Marian N. Walker. From the beginning of this project, Daria D’Arienzo has been an indispensable counsellor. My wife, Eugenia W. Herbert, has been a long-suffering helpmate and proofreader. 2 My annotations of the letters record biographical dates and biographical references for the persons named, which spares me the need to include the same information here, except when it seems important to the context. Hitchcock-Silliman letters 3 original thinker than Silliman. At the outset of their correspondence, Silliman was fifteen years older and had matured sooner than Hitchcock, so virtually a whole generation separated them. Silliman was a cosmopolitan New England patrician, well connected, widely traveled, author of well appreciated travel accounts. and familiar with leading American and European scientists whom he welcomed to the pages of his journal. By contrast, Hitchcock was a provincial from lower middle class origins with no college degree and a rank beginner in the sciences. I’ve taken the correspondence as an excuse to trace his intellectual development from parochial isolation to well- earned eminence in geology. He was also known as a leading theologian, and I’ll do justice to his dual career although I’ll favor science. This essay is divided into three chronological portions as a convenient way of coordinating the interchange of ideas within the successive periods. Abbreviations used throughout the introduction: AJS = American Journal of Science. Box = File location in EOH. BS = Benjamin Silliman. EH = Edward Hitchcock. EOH = Orra White and Edward Hitchcock Papers, Archives and Special Collections, Amherst College. Part One: Geology and the first years of the American journal of science, 1817-1830 Edward Hitchcock (1793-1864), a middle class provincial, is a decided contrast with Benjamin Silliman (1779-1864), son of an urbane patrician family. Hitchcock was born in Deerfield, Massachusetts, one of several children of an impecunious hatter. He studied at Deerfield Academy from 1804 to 1809, then, to make ends meet, he worked on an older brother’s farm while depending on the family home. He couldn’t afford college but independently studied botany, mineralogy, astronomy, and mathematics, the latter two subjects in collaboration with his mentor, his maternal uncle General Epaphras Hoyt (1765-1850). Hoyt, whose publications on military science included astronomy and mathematics, was well equipped to aid his studious nephew. Nephew and uncle studied astronomy together from 1811 to 1815, using Deerfield Academy’s instruments. Edward published a miscellany in 1813, lectured locally on science, and wrote on diverse subjects for local weeklies.3 In 1816 he was made principal of Deerfield Academy and taught there, but he had to leave at the end of 1818 when a depressed economy forced the school to close for a time. Like so many others of his generation he had to patch together several vocational and intellectual pursuits to form a career. When he began corresponding with Silliman in 1817 he was already engaged in extensive geological and botanical study of the Connecticut River Valley which would be the subject of his first contribution to the American journal of science. In contrast to Hitchcock, whose early life is only sketchily known, the youth and early maturity of Benjamin Silliman is well documented. In 1796, at age seventeen, he earned his bachelor’s degree at Yale College.