Well Shawn,
I'm glad you finally got around to reading my blog after my constant
suggestions that you do so.
Let me know when you work your way up to Greene and Burke. :-) Oh, and
don't forget the Woodhouse reference which I sent you too - let me know when
you've read that one also! You asked for it after all.
Despite the muddled picture which Shawn presents, I'll let the words in my
blog - which were written about Prince's book - and which have nothing to do
with Shawn - speak for themselves.
Prince casts Silliman as the new father of meteoritics, and that's what the
blog is about.
Again, for those who are interested, see the latest post at
www.meteoritemanuscripts.blogspot.com
Be sure to click the small pencil icon at the end of the blog to see
Prince's response.
Thanks again.
Mark
----- Original Message -----
From: "Shawn Alan" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Cc: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2011 5:36 PM
Subject: Weston meteorite fall 1807 .... Silliman andWoodhouse, RIVALRY or
BAD SCIENCE????
Hi Mark and Listers,
Mark I did take a look at your review and your stance on Silliman's work
on the Weston meteorite to say the least is summed up by these statements "
Silliman’s face must be red with embarrassment....Silliman’s accomplishments
in capturing the imagination of the public versus the quality of his
scientific work on the fragments, which was professional but certainly not
exceptional"
You go further by saying that Woodhouse on the other hand didn’t receive
enough credit with the Weston meteorite fall. But I find it odd that these
two gentlemen had a rivalry. At one point Woodhouse's work on analysis of
meteorite stones could be summed up to be "loose and not to be depended on"
quoted from the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, which in
March 1808 Silliman and Kingsley read a memoir to the American Philosophical
Society about the Weston meteorite fall.
Source
http://books.google.com/books?id=BUsLAAAAIAAJ&lpg=PA285&dq=Philadelphia%20Medical%20Museum%2C%205%2C%202%20(1808)%20woodhouse&pg=PA285#v=onepage&q=Philadelphia%20Medical%20Museum,%205,%202%20(1808)%20woodhouse&f=false
You have suggested that Woodhouse's role could be deemed just as
important as Sillimans and that Prince did not express that in her work. But
my question is why do you feel that Woodhouses role was just as important if
not even more? I see that the first publication of any account of the Weston
meteorite fall was done on December 29, 1807 by Silliman and Kingsley sent a
preliminary description of the fall phenomena and the stones to The
Connecticut Herald, in New Haven, making the report one of the first
published report on the Weston meteorite fall.( Marvin B47 2007, The origins
of modern meteorite research) A few days later a letter written by Bronson a
merchant describe his observation and was published January 2, 1808 in The
New York Spector.
As for publications go Silliman was one of the first to do so and not to
mention his first-hand accounts in the field as opposed to Woodhouse lack of
engagement in the field, and second hand sources. You say that Woodhouse
published his analysis of the Weston meteorite; may I ask what the date was
when he published his findings and where?
In January 1808 Silliman's manuscript accounts the analysis of the Weston
fall and at that time Woodhouse's analysis had been unpublished and to some
felt his work to be unsound and loose. In March 1808 Silliman and Kingsley
read their memoir of the Weston meteorite fall and analysis in front of the
American Philosophical Society and to further their analysis and research
had numerous excerpts and abstractions published in Europe in 1808.
Now I find this statement from your review to be odd which you state....
"Silliman’s Weston study owes a great debt to the chemical work of Edward
Howard and other analysts, such as Vauquelin, Fourcroy (1755-1809) and
Klaproth, as well as to scientist Jean Baptiste Biot (1774-1862), who
interviewed scores of eyewitnesses to the 1803 L’Aigle meteorite shower and
documented their reports"
But what is interesting is you failed to express that Sillimans and
Kingsley excerpts and abstractions from the Weston meteorite fall were read
to the Royal Society in London in 1808, and a
newspaper article on it had been translated into French and
read to the National Institute in Paris before a rapt audience
including Fourcroy, Vauquelin, Berthollet, Laplace,
Lagrange, and Biot (Brown 1989:236) (Marvin B47 2007, The origins of modern
meteorite research)
Its interesting how this comes full circle and how student learners from
instructor and instructor learns from student. I feel that the placement of
Sillimans role in American meteoritic science science can be summed up to
this....
"His scientific work, which was extensive, began with the examination in
1807 of the meteor that fell near Weston, Conn. He procured fragments, of
which he made a chemical analysis, and he wrote the earliest and best
authenticated account' of the fall of a meteor in America."
Cited from: APPLETONS' CYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY
VOL V. PICKERING-SUMTER 1888
On the other hand Mark, Woodhouses role is concerned, his reputation as a
chemist and mineralogist was not high and to some, seen as being loose and
not being dependable with analysis of stones. Now does the rivalry lay in
the lack of evidence that one might present in an argument of why Woodhouse
deserves accreditation or is the rivalry a mere conflict between
student/teacher, a dilemma that presented its self at the time of meteoritic
science was at the for front in America, the race for notoriety of the first
American to have a well-documented account with the first American meteorite
fall, THE WESTON meteorite. I feel that Silliman's role was one of the best
first hand accounts of a meteroite fall/analysis in America and Woodhouse
falling short and seen as loose in his work and not to be depended on.
Thank you
Shawn Alan
IMCA 1633
eBaystore
http://shop.ebay.com/photophlow/m.html
----- Original Message -----
From: "Shawn Alan" <photophlow at yahoo.com>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2011 12:48 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Weston meteorite fall 1807 .... Silliman
andWoodhouse, RIVALRY or BAD SCIENCE????
Hello Listers,
Over the course of a few days I had done some research on the Weston
meteorite fall and read up on Silliman's role and it could be summed up to
these few quotes....
"His scientific work, which was extensive, began with the examination in
1807 of the meteor that fell near Weston, Conn. He procured fragments, of
which he made a chemical analysis, and he wrote the earliest and best
authenticated account' of the fall of a meteor in America."
Cited from: APPLETONS' CYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY
VOL V. PICKERING-SUMTER 1888
Source
http://books.google.com/books?id=K6koAAAAYAAJ&dq=weston%20meteorite%201807%20woodhouse&pg=PA528#v=onepage&q&f=false
"SILLIMAN, Benjamin, scientist, was born in North Stratford, Conn., Aug.
8, 1779 : son of Gold Selleck Silliman (q.v.) and Mary Fish (Noyes)
Silliman. He was graduated at Yale, A.B., 1796, A.M., 1799.... In 1805, he
went abroad to study a year at Edinburgh and to buy books and apparatus.
On his return, he studied the geology of New Haven, and in 1807 he
examined the meteor that fell near Weston, Conn., making a chemical
analysis of fragments, this report being the first scientific account of
any American meteor."
Cited from: THE TWENTIETH CENTURY BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF NOTABLE
AMERICANS I904
And lastly, a quote taken from James Woodhouse biography written by Edgar
Fahs Smith stating Silliman's account of the Weston meteorite fall to
be......
"An elaborate account of this meteor has been published by Messrs.
Silliman and Kingsley, of Yale College, Connecticut."
Source
http://books.google.com/books?id=4JMEAAAAYAAJ&dq=weston%20meteorite%201807%20woodhouse&pg=PA274#v=onepage&q&f=false
But what caught my interest was the dynamic roles that played with
Silliman and Woodhouse and that some believed Woodhouse role with the
Weston meteorite fall to be "loose and not depended on". Take a look at
the link below and start at the top of the page. From what I can gather,
Silliman and Woodhouse seemed to have a rivalry and few scholars felt the
same way about Woodhouse work with the Weston meteorite being bad science.
Source
http://books.google.com/books?id=BUsLAAAAIAAJ&lpg=PA285&dq=Philadelphia%20Medical%20Museum%2C%205%2C%202%20(1808)%20woodhouse&pg=PA285#v=onepage&q=Philadelphia%20Medical%20Museum,%205,%202%20(1808)%20woodhouse&f=false
Now from my understanding Silliman and Kingsley arrived in Weston December
21 1807, a week after the Weston meteorite fall. During those few days
Silliman and Kingsley interviewed witnesses and acquired fragments from
various sites in Weston. Here is an excerpt from a letter detailing their
accounts in Weston....
"Yale College, December 26, 1807.
Messrs. Steele, & Co.,
As imperfect and erroneous accounts of the late phenomenon at Weston are
finding their way into the public prints, we take the 1U berty of
enclosing for your paper the result of an investigation into the
circumstances and evidence of the event referred to, which we have made on
the ground where it happened. That we may not interrupt our narration by
repeating the observation wherever it is applicable, we may remark, once
for all, that we visited and carefully examined every spot where the
stones had been ascertained to have fallen, and several places where they
had beeu only suspected, without any discovery; that we obtained specimens
of every stone; conversed with all the principal original witnesses ;
spent several days in the investigation, and were, at the time, the only
persons who had explored the whole ground.
We are, gentlemen, your obedient servants,
BENJAMIN SILLIMAN.
JAMES L. KINGSLEY.
Cited from: THE AMERICAN REGISTER OR GENERAL REPOSITORY OF
HISTORY, POLITICS, AND SCIENCE. PART II FOR 1807.
Source
http://books.google.com/books?id=SlrQAAAAMAAJ&dq=weston%20meteorite%201807%20woodhouse&pg=PA267#v=onepage&q&f=false
After Sillimans and Kingsley return from Weston, on December 29, 1807
Silliman and Kingsley sent a preliminary description of the fall phenomena
and the stones to The Connecticut Herald, in New Haven, making the report
one of the first published report on the Weston meteorite fall.( Marvin
B47 2007, The origins of modern meteorite research) A day later, December
30, 1807 Dr Benjamin Rush handed over some specimens from the Weston
meteorite to James Woodhouse for analysis.
Cited from:
http://books.google.com/books?id=SlrQAAAAMAAJ&dq=weston%20meteorite%201807%20woodhouse&pg=PA267#v=onepage&q&f=false
And now this is where the dilemma lays with Silliman and Woodhouse and the
rivalry between the two could have started. Stated earlier, in January
1808 Silliman's manuscript accounts the analysis of the Weston fall and at
that time Woodhouse's analysis had been unpublished and to some felt his
work to be unsound and loose.
"On 1808 March 4, the memoir by Silliman and Kingsley
was read to the American Philosophical Society and assigned
to referees Woodhouse, Hare, and Cloud, who were so
favorably impressed that they recommended publication in
the forthcoming volume of the society’s Transactions
(Marvin 1979), which, however, would not appear until the
following year. Meanwhile, their work became widely known
in Europe when Silliman submitted their paper to various
European editors with high hopes of reaching a readership
knowledgeable about meteorites and their chemistry. His
hopes were quickly fulfilled. During 1808, excerpts or
abstracts appeared in several well-known European journals,
including the Philosophical Magazine, Bibliothèque
Britannique, Annalen der Physik, Journal de Physique, de
Chemie, et d’Histoire Naturelle, and Journal des Mines. A
copy was read to the Royal Society in London, and a
newspaper article on it had been translated into French and
read to the National Institute in Paris before a rapt audience
including Fourcroy, Vauquelin, Berthollet, Laplace,
Lagrange, and Biot (Brown 1989:236). All of this attention
served not only to raise Silliman, who was at the very
beginning of his career, into the ranks of internationally
known scientists, but also to elevate the status of Yale
University and, indeed, of American science, itself—even
before the publication of the memoir in the Transactions of
the American Philosophical Society in 1809."
(Marvin B47 2007, The origins of modern meteorite research)
Now is the rivalry between Silliman and Woodhouse on who published the
analysis first or is it seeded deeper between the two individauls on the
greatest meteorite fall in American HISTORY? One can concluded that
Silliman and Kingsley went to Weston. Stilliman's preliminary description
of the meteorite fall was published on December 29th 1807. In March 1808
Silliman and Kingsley read their memoir of the Weston meteorite fall and
analysis in front of the American Philosophical Society and to further
their analysis and research had numerous excerpts and abstractions
published in Europe in 1808. In addition, many sources had concluded that
"Silliman's scientific work, which was extensive, began with the
examination in 1807 of the meteor that fell near Weston, Conn. He procured
fragments, of which he made a chemical analysis, and he wrote the earliest
and best authenticated account' of the fall of a meteor in America."
As for Woodhouse is concerd, his reputation as a chemist and mineralogist
was not high and to some, seen as being loose and not being dependable
with analysis of stones. Now does the rivalry lay in the lack of evidence
that one might present in an argument of why Woodhouse deserves
accreditation or is the rivalry a mere conflict bewteen student/teacher, a
delemma that presented its self at the time of meteoritic science was at
the for front in America, the race for notoriety of the first American to
have a well documented account with the first American meteorite fall, THE
WESTON meteorite.
Thank you
Shawn Alan
IMCA 1633
eBaystore
http://shop.ebay.com/photophlow/m.html
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