Benjamin Smith Lyman

Benjamin Smith Lyman (December 11, 1835 – August 30, 1920) was an American mining engineer, surveyor, and an amateur linguist and anthropologist. He was also a promoter of vegetarianism.

Biography

Benjamin Smith Lyman was born in Northampton, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University in 1855. After working briefly as a school teacher, he worked as an assistant to his wife's uncle on a topographical and geological survey of Broad Top Mountain in Pennsylvania, which spurred his interest in geology and mining engineering. He studied for a year at the Ecole Imperiale des Mines in Paris (1859–60), then took a practical course at the Freiberg Mining Academy in Freiberg, Saxony (1861–62). Upon returning to the United States, Lyman opened an office as a consulting mining engineer in Philadelphia and worked on surveys from Pennsylvania to Nova Scotia, Arizona and California.

In 1870, Lyman surveyed oil fields in the Punjab region for the Public Works Department of the government of British India, during which he developed an interest in the Far East.

In 1872 he was hired by the Japanese government to survey the coal and oil deposits of Hokkaidō and along the Sea of Japan coastline of Honshu. His survey identified the most promising coal fields for Hokkaidō's eventually successful coal industry as well as reporting on progress in the reclamation of waste land; the nature of the soil in various districts; the customs, physique, and folklore of the Ainu people; useful ores and stones; the development of hydraulic power; importation of foreign capital; and the advantage of cooperation with foreign concerns in the mining industry. He stayed on in Japan from 1873 to 1879 as chief geologist and mining engineer to the Meiji government. In 1874, he advised the Hokkaidō Development Commission to place bounties on bears and wolves and encourage their hunting so they would not impede on efforts to introduce livestock to the island. To this end, Edwin Dun a rancher from Ohio employed by the Development Commission, oversaw a mass poisoning campaign of the Hokkaido wolf.

While in Japan, he educated many Japanese in western techniques for natural resource surveys, and published the first geological map of Hokkaidō in 1876.

Vegetarianism

Lyman, a vegetarian for most of his life, published a scholarly cookbook of vegetarian recipes in 1917 at the age of 81. Lyman travelled extensively throughout China, Europe, Japan and the United States. Based on his experiences from his travels he adopted a vegetarian diet in 1864. He was a vegetarian for 56 years of his life, until his death at the age of 84. He was described of believing in vegetarianism "with almost religious devotion."

Selected publications

1868 – Telescopic Measurement in Surveying 1870 – General Report on the Punjab Oil Lands 1873 – Topography of the Punjab Oil region 1874 – Preliminary Report on the First Season's Work on the Geological Survey of Yesso 1877 – A General Report on the Geology of Yesso 1877 – Geological Survey of the Oil Lands of Japan General Report on the Punjab Oil Lands 1878 – Notes on Japanese Grammar 1879 – Geological Survey of Japan: Reports of Progress for 1878 and 1879. Tookei: Public Works Department. OCLC: 13342563 1892 – Japanese Swords 1893 – The Great Mesozoic Fault in New Jersey 1894 – Change from surd to sonant in Japanese compounds 1894 – Age of Newark Brownstone 1894 – Some New Red Horizons 1897 – Against Adopting the Metric System 1900 – Movements of Ground Water 1902 – The Original Southern Limit of Pennsylvania Anthracite Beds 1904 – Some Hindoo Marriage Ceremonies 1907 – The Philippines 1909 – Need of Instrument Surveying in Practical Geology 1912 – Natural History Morality 1915 – A Practical Rational Alphabet 1916 – Natural Morality 1917 – Vegetarian Diet and Dishes