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303:. His work in those areas established Yale's rock and mineral collection as the most significant in America at the time. With his help, Yale became the foremost center of science in 19th-century America. Benjamin Silliman Sr. is considered by many to be the father of American chemistry. With the exception of Silliman Jr.'s involvement in the oil boom, there are many similarities between the careers of both Sillimans.
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petroleum burned far brighter than any fuel on the market, except those that were far more expensive and less efficient. His conclusion was that petroleum is "a raw material from which...they may manufacture a very valuable product." Silliman also noted that this material was able to survive through large ranges of temperature, and the possibility of it being used as a lubricant.
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rock oil commercially, marketed as lamp fuel and such. But they needed someone—an important, well-respected scientist—whose name they could attach to their financial venture, to research the material to find out whether or not it could be used in such a manner. They found
Benjamin Silliman Jr., professor of chemistry at Yale.
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oil a day. However, the influence of these oil wells, and
Benjamin Silliman Jr.'s report confirming the use of petroleum as an illuminant, was massive. Almost equally important in Bissell's idea and Silliman's discovery was the use of rock oil for lubrication of the many moving parts in the mechanical age soon to come.
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on August 27, 1859. The scenery of
Titusville changed almost overnight. Oil derricks and towns filled with get-rich-quick speculators filled the newly named Oil Creek. The holes were generally unremarkable, especially by the standards of today; the first probably only gathered less than 50 barrels of
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of petroleum, analyzed mainly for the purpose of its qualities of illumination. He was asked to do this as one of the most prominent chemists of his time, and his report on the subject afterwards had extremely far-reaching influences. The immensely important main idea of his report was that distilled
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Benjamin
Silliman Sr. was clearly the largest inspiration in Benjamin Silliman Jr.'s career. Both Sillimans were eminent chemists and professors of the subject at Yale University. The father was the first professor of chemistry at Yale in 1802, and studied the subject at the Medical College of the
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being used as an illuminatory substance. At the time, rock oil was nothing but a smelly hindrance to the well-diggers of the region, with some limited medicinal properties. Yet
Bissell and Eveleth, after realizing how flammable the liquid was, believed there was great money to be made in producing
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Silliman's fame as an oil pioneer put him in great demand as a consultant to mining companies, a line of work in which he was much less successful. His great overestimate of the ore reserves in the Emma mine near
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contributed to a financial fiasco for
British investors when the mine exhausted its ore years ahead of Silliman's prediction. He also reported very optimistically on the mines at
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The impact of the discovery of petroleum as a high-quality illuminator is obvious. At the time, however, Bissell and
Eveleth simply brought some people together to form the "
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212:, and James Townsend, a New Haven bank president, had a revolutionary idea. They thought there was a possibility of the crude "rock oil" (now
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was in charge of drilling the well, and after many setbacks, generally revolving around the lack of money, he struck oil in quiet, rural,
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Silliman's daughters, Alice and Susan, were the first two students to enroll at the Yale School of Fine Arts when it opened in 1869.
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Benjamin
Silliman's primary contribution to the chemical world, and certainly the world as a whole, involved the
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In the 1850s the market for light-producing liquid fuels was dominated by
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157:(December 4, 1816 – January 14, 1885) was a professor of chemistry at
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and its usefulness as an illuminant that convinced investors to back
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433:. Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences. pp. 115–141.
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Silliman's wife, Susan Huldah Forbes, was a descendant of
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Sr., also a famous Yale chemist, developed the process of
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A Voyage Around the World Made by Joel Root 1802-1806
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The Prize, The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power
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The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power
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406:We Were Always Here: Celebrating All Women at Yale
360:. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 19–29.
420:American Council of Learned Societies, 1928–1936.
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30:For his father, a chemist of the same name, see
402:"The First University Art Gallery and School"
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200:and by an increasingly inadequate supply of
382:A Hole in the Ground with a Liar at the Top
484:Businesspeople from New Haven, Connecticut
418:Dictionary of American Biography Base Set.
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427:Biographical Memoir of Benjamin Silliman
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524:19th-century American businesspeople
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519:Sheffield Scientific School faculty
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504:Burials at Grove Street Cemetery
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454:The Story of Oil In Pennsylvania
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445:Works by Benjamin Silliman Jr.
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244:Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company
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534:Members of Skull and Bones
424:Wright, Arthur W. (1911).
293:University of Pennsylvania
210:Jonathan Greenleaf Eveleth
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252:Titusville, Pennsylvania
514:Yale University faculty
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286:Influences
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308:Joel Root
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