IN the year 1883 a legacy of eighty thousand dollars was
left to the President and Fellows of Yale College in the city
of New Haven, to be held in trust, as a gift from her chil-
dren, in memory of their beloved and honored mother, Mrs.
Hepsa Ely Silliman.

On this foundation Yale College was requested and di-
rected to establish an annual course of lectures designed to
illustrate the presence and providence, the wisdom and
goodness of God, as manifested in the natural and moral
world. These were to be designated as the Mrs. Hepsa Ely
Silliman Memorial Lectures. It was the belief of the testator
that any orderly presentation of the facts of nature or
history contributed to the end of this foundation more effec-
tively than any attempt to emphasize the elements of doc-
trine or of creed; and he therefore provided that lectures
on dogmatic or polemical theology should be excluded from
the scope of this foundation, and that the subjects should
be selected rather from the domains of natural science and
history, giving special prominence to astronomy, chemistry,
geology and anatomy.

It was further directed that each annual course should be
made the basis of a volume to form part of a series con-
stituting a memorial to Mrs. Silliman. The memorial fund
came into the possession of the Corporation of Yale Uni-
versity in the year 1901; and the present work constitutes
the twentieth volume published on this foundation.

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