JAMES DWIGHT DANA

GEOLOGIST

1813-1895

BY WILLIAM NORTH RICE

JAMES DWIGHT DANA1 was born in Utica, New York,, February 12, 1813. He was a descendant of Richard Dana, who is believed to have emigrated from England to Massachusetts about 1640. Among the numerous posterity of Richard Dana are included a remarkably large number of men of eminent achievement in science, literature, and politics, in the ministry and the law.2 The history of the family prior to the emigration of Richard Dana is uncertain. It appears probable that the family name is of Italian origin, and that some ancestor of Richard emigrated from Italy

1 In the preparation of this sketch, the principal sources (aside from personal memories of a revered teacher and friend, and from Professor Dana's own works) have been the biography by President Gilman (The Life of James Dwight Dana, Scientific Explorer, Mineralogist, Geologist, Zoologist. New York and London, 1899), and the appreciative articles by Professors E. S. Dana (American Journal of Science, series 3, vol. 49, pp. 329-356), LeConte (Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, vol. 7, pp. 461–479), Williams (Journal of Geology, vol. 3, pp. 601-621), Farrington (Journal of Geology, vol. 3, pp. 335-340), and Beecher (American Geologist, vol. 17, pp. 1-16).

2 Among the most eminent descendants of Richard Dana may be mentioned Francis Dana, member of the Continental Congress, Chief Justice of Massachusetts; Richard Henry Dana, poet; Richard Henry Dana, Jr., jurist; Samuel Whittlesey Dana, United States Senator from Connecticut; John Winchester Dana, Governor of Maine; James Freeman Dana, chemist and mineralogist; Samuel Luther Dana, chemist; Charles Anderson Dana, editor, Assistant Secretary of War.

to England. A number of Italians bearing the name of Dana have had honorable careers in various intellectual professions. The intense vivacity of mind and body which always characterized Professor Dana may have been due in some degree to his inheritance from the sunny land of Italy.

The parents of James Dwight Dana were intelligent, energetic, and earnestly religious people, and the atmosphere of the home was thoroughly wholesome. "Honesty, virtue and industry seem almost to be our natural inheritance," said Professor Dana in after years, in grateful memory of the influences under which he and his nine brothers and sisters had been reared. There is, however, no evidence that the associations of his childhood home tended to inspire or cultivate an interest in scientific investigation. One of his aunts, who was a member of the household in which his boyhood was passed, describes him as "a merry boy, always ready for a game of romps." She informs us that he began collecting specimens at an early age, and that "he had quite a cabinet before he was ten years old." How much significance belongs to these early efforts, it is impossible to estimate.

The earliest influence tending to awaken into activity his scientific taste and talent was found in an academy which had been established in Utica by Charles Bartlett. The science teacher in that school, Fay Edgerton, was a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and was far in advance of his time in his methods of scientific instruction. His students were taught in large degree by laboratory methods. Especially instructive and inspiring were his short field excursions in term time, and his longer tours with his students in the summer vacations, in which they collected minerals, fossils, plants, etc., and acquired the mental habitudes which come from first-hand contact with nature. Mr. Edgerton was succeeded in his position by Asa Gray, the illustrious botanist. It does not appear, however, that Dana was ever a pupil of Gray,1

1 According to M. M. Bagg (quoted by Gilman, p. 16), Gray commenced teaching in Utica in 1829; but a letter of Gray to Torrey (Letters of Asa Gray, p. 37) shows that Gray's work in Utica did not begin till 1832. This was after Dana had entered college.

though their friendship and helpful mutual influence certainly commenced early in life.

In 1830, Dana entered the Sophomore Class of Yale College, and he was duly graduated from that institution in 1833. His standing in general scholarship was creditable though not brilliant. Those were the days of the fixed curriculum in which the staples were classics and mathematics. Dana's preparation in the classics had been defective, and in college he did not distinguish himself in that department. He attained, however, a high grade in mathematics; and it is needless to say that he made the most of the rather scanty opportunities which an American college then afforded for the study of the sciences of nature. Undoubtedly the strongest influence in his college life towards the shaping of his future career was that of the elder Benjamin Silliman, whose pioneer work in chemistry and geology was already giving renown to Yale College.

In the spring of 1833, Dana received an appointment as schoolmaster in the navy. He was ordered to report June 15, at Norfolk, Virginia, for service on the U. S. ship Delaware, in a cruise in the Mediterranean. The school for the instruction of midshipmen on the ship was presided over by the chaplain. Dana's work was that of instructor in mathematics. The routine duties of his position left him much leisure, and he devoted a large portion of his time to the study of crystallography. He had opportunities for observation of the geology of various localities on the Mediterranean shores. The earliest of his long series of scientific publications was a letter to Professor Silliman, describing Vesuvius as it appeared in July, 1834, which was published in the American Journal of Science in the following year. He returned to this country near the end of the year 1834, and retired from the naval service.

The return from the Mediterranean cruise was the beginning of a period of perplexity. Already young Dana clearly heard the inward call to a distinctively scientific career, but in those days the opportunities to secure a livelihood in such a career were far less abundant than at present. A great encouragement to the

aspirations of the young scientist was his appointment as assistant to Professor Silliman in 1836. The routine duties of the position occupied but little time. He had the benefit of stimulating association with other scientific men, and the use of the library and the already respectable mineralogical collection of the college.

His studies at this period were chiefly in mineralogy; and in 1837 appeared the first of his great scientific works, the System of Mineralogy. It is certainly remarkable that a book representing so large an amount of research should have been produced by a man only twenty-four years old, and only four years out of college. Successive editions of the work were published in 1844, 1850, 1854, and 1868. In the fifth edition Professor Dana had the assistance of Professor George J. Brush. That edition included only descriptive mineralogy, but was more voluminous than the previous editions which had included crystallography also. A sixth edition, completely rewritten by Professor Edward S. Dana, the son of James D. Dana, was published in 1892.

The four years from the summer of 1838 to that of 1842 stand strongly in contrast with the remainder of Professor Dana's career. In those years he had an experience of the adventures, the hardships, and perils, and no less of the joys, of the explorer of unknown lands and seas. The remainder of his life was in the main the quiet and uneventful life of the student. To him, as to his great contemporary, Charles Darwin, a period of world-wide travel, coming early in his career, with its opportunities of seeing most varied aspects of nature and life, was doubtless of immense value in storing his memory with material for scientific thought, and in leading him to broad views of cosmic processes. Most of all to a geologist is wide and varied travel an experience of inestimable importance.

The United States Exploring Expedition, under the command of Lieutenant (afterwards Admiral) Charles Wilkes, sailed from Norfolk, Virginia, August 18, 1838. The expedition consisted of six vessels-the Vincennes, the Peacock, the Porpoise, the Relief, the Sea-gull, and the Flying-fish. Of these, the first two were sloops-of-war, and were the principal vessels of the little squadron.