BENJAMIN SILLIMAN JR. - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 02/22/1848 - HFSID 253689

BENJAMIN SILLIMAN, JR.
His report on the economic uses of petroleum led to drilling of the first oil well.
Autograph Letter signed: "B Silliman Jr", 1p, 7¾x9¾. New Haven, 1848 February 22. To "Professor H. D. Rogers, Boston", in full: "Agreeably to your brother's instruction I enclose to you the accompanying Ms abstract of the very remarkable experiment they have lately made on the decomposing process of water H20. Your Brother wished us in case the March No of the Journal was already full to send the Ms to you. I have written him that our No. was not only full but at printer and ready to be sent out next week. I have also suggested to him the propriety of publishing this abstract in the May No. after it had been read by you before the Society of Natural History to secure priority, and as our May No. will probably be published as early as any number of the Society proceedings. In case he adopts this suggestion we shall be glad of the Ms again at an early day as we now have a full complement of Ms for May. Yours truly. P.S. What news of Mr. Hillard?". Benjamin Silliman, Jr. (1816-1885), the son and namesake of Yale University's first professor of chemistry, followed in his father's footstep by holding the same position. In 1855, at the request of the founders of the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company, Silliman, Jr. wrote a report lauding the economic potential of rock oil, now called petroleum, previously considered a smelly nuisance. Although his vision of oil's future was for lighting and lubrication, not a power source, his report helped George Bissell and James Townsend to raise capital for their enterprise. Shortly thereafter, the company, renamed the Seneca Oil Company, financed the drilling of the first oil well by Edwin Drake in Titusville, Pennsylvania (1859). Silliman also developed a distillation method permitting the economic production of kerosene. Pencil notations in margins. Mailing folds. Fine condition.