264 SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS • 



"Among the zoologists of this country I would place Mr. Dana at 

 the head. He is still very young, fertile in ideas, rich in facts, equally 

 able as a geologist and mineralogist. When his work on corals is com- 

 pleted, you can better judge of him. One of these days you will make 

 him a correspondent of the Institute, unless he kills himself with work 

 too early." 



This prediction was fulfilled twenty six years later. Dana became 

 a corresponding member of the Institute in 1873, not as a geologist or 

 mineralogist, but in the section of anatomy and zoology; and I am told 

 that for the fnost part the conclusions he drew from his studies of the 

 Crustacea nearly 80 years ago are still accepted, 



Dana's kindness and helpfulness to his old pupils has often been 

 recorded. This goodness was not confined to them: it was extended to 

 me whom he never saw and it heartened me when I needed encourage- 

 ment. His very last letter was spontaneous and without other occasion 

 than to inform me of a favorable opinion by H. A. Newton on a bit of 

 my work. He could have saved himself the trouble of writing, but 

 preferred to give pleasure. 



Berzelius is said to have remarked that he was the last chemist 

 who would know all chemistry, the idea being that no younger man could 

 catch up. The anecdote is at least "ben trovato," and Berzelius was 

 the man to realize the fact. Dana in 1879 may be said to have been 

 a complete master of geology, but he did not realize his loneliness. Just 

 at the time Clarence King appointed me on this Survey, Dana coun- 

 seled him to choose no assistant who could not do his own stratigraphy, 

 paleontology, mineralogy, and lithology! Fortunately, King saw the 

 impossibility of setting up a standard that would have excluded every- 

 body but Dana. 



The Journal has exerted a potent influence on science in America. 

 Its banner afforded a rallying point for a few idealists when there was 

 imminent danger that Philistinism would gain complete control of a 

 nation struggling with natural resources almost excessive in their 

 abundance. It has been one of the landmarks of our independent 

 nationality, for such a journal could not have thriven in a mere colony. 

 It stimulated the spirit of investigation and helped to guide the devel- 

 opment of research along sane and sound lines. For a time it constituted 

 the scientific periodical literature of the country, and if today it is only 

 one of numerous periodicals devoted to science, many of them may well 

 be regarded as offshoots from the American Journal of Science. 



Salve! 



Sincerely yours, 



George F. Becker. 



