3 o8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



In Dana's journeyings he had to surmount hardship and peril, and 

 to meet the coldness of those who knew not the value of the quest 

 which he pursued. He and his contemporaries were like the knights 

 errant of chivalry, devoting their lives to an ideal. They were men 

 of faith, who combined the spirit of the missionary and the inspiration 

 of the poet with the clear vision of the observer. 



The largeness of Dana's work was commensurate with the large- 

 ness of his inspiration. It fell to his lot not only to fill out many 

 pages of the record of the building of the world, as written in the 

 fossil life of America, but to show in important ways the methods 

 by which that building was accomplished. His creative brain never 

 rested content with mere description of facts. He had the more dis- 

 tinctively modern impulse to reconstruct the process by which those 

 facts were brought to pass. From his observations of coral islands 

 in the various stages of their growth he deduced a geologic principle 

 of world-wide importance. It is this characteristic which makes the 

 great modern German school of geologists headed by Suess look to 

 Dana as their precursor, more than to any other man of his generation. 



He was not content with the work of discovery alone. The teaching 

 spirit was strong within him. The pioneers in science needed editors 

 and expositors who should make their results known. In each of these 

 capacities Dana's achievements were phenomenal. Of his work as 

 an editor, he has left the files of The American Journal of Science 

 as a monument. Of his work as an expositor those who have heard 

 his lectures and attended his class-room exercises can speak with un- 

 bounded enthusiasm. He was one of the rare men who by presence 

 and voice and manner could bring the truths and ideals of science 

 home even to those pupils with whom scientific study could never 

 be more than an incident in their lives. 



But above all his works and above all his qualities stands the figure 

 of Dana himself — more than an explorer, more than a discoverer, 

 more than a teacher; his countenance, as it were, illuminated by a 

 touch of the light of a new day for which the world was being prepared. 



His life was gentle; and the elements 



So mixed in him that Nature might stand forth 



And say to all the world, ' This was a man.' 



Spencer Fullerton Baird 



By Dr. HUGH M. SMITH 

 BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



The life, the character, the work of Spencer Fullerton Baird 

 entitle him to recognition in any assemblage and on any occasion 

 where honor is to be paid to those who have been their county's 

 benefactors through illustrious achievements in science. 



