[meteorite-list] Weston 1807 meteorite fall - Analysis report bySilliman and Kingsley

[Mark Grossman]

Shawn,

Since you brought up the Silliman/Woodhouse topic again today,, I want to be 
sure you understand that I am not trying to inflate the work of Woodhouse at 
the expense of Silliman.  I am trying to present a balanced perspective of 
what both Woodhouse and Silliman accomplished.

If you really want to learn about Woodhouse, see J. J. Beer, "The chemistry 
of the founding fathers", Journal of Chemical Education, vol. 53, no. 7 
(1976), pp. 405-408.

It's available at the following link:

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1021/ed053p405

Regarding Silliman's low opinion of Woodhouse, Beer, who taught at the 
University of Delaware, states:  "the long-run evaluation of Woodhouse by 
his colleagues and subsequent historians is different."  He then goes on to 
outline Woodhouse's accomplishments.

See page 407 of the article.

There is a difference between scientific discovery vs. scientific 
promotion/education - - Sillimans work on the Weston meteorite falls into 
the latter category.  It may have brought Silliman, as well as the U.S.,  a 
lot of publicity and fame, but as far as science goes, it was not a 
particularly impressive piece of analytical work, considering that Silliman 
himself admitted that he followed in the footsteps of Howard and others.

Again, everything is on the Meteorite Manuscripts post on Prince's book, 
which can be viewed at the links below.

Mark

Mark Grossman
Meteorite Manuscripts
Briarcliff Manor, NY

http://meteoritemanuscripts.blogspot.com

http://twitter.com/MetManuscripts

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Meteorite-Manuscripts/152949358073543?v=wall