30 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



Obitfaet Notices. 



Geneeal Egbson Benson, J.P., died at Bath, October 22nd, 1894. 

 General Benson entered the service of the East India Company 

 in 1839, and was for the greater part of his career on the Staff' 

 of the Public Works Department. For his services during the 

 Mutiny he received the thanks of the Government. He returned 

 to England in 1877. An enthusiastic botanist, he had charge of 

 the Public Gardens at Eaugoon from 1865 to 1869, and of the 

 Botanical Gardens at Madras from 1872 to 1876. While in 

 Burmah he discovered and forwarded to Kew many interesting 

 orchids, one of which {Vanda Bensoni) bears his name. Sonerila 

 Bensoni was found by him in the Neilgherry Hills. 



General Benson was elected a Fellow in 1870. [J. W. Morris.] 



James Dwight Dana was born at Utica, in the State of New 

 York, on February 12th, 1813. He was educated at Yale College, 

 New Haven, Conuecticut ; and after taking bis degree in 1833, 

 he was appointed Instructor of Mathematics to the United States 

 Navy, a post which enabled him to visit many parts of the world 

 and to devote considerable attention to volcanic phenomena. 

 From 1836 to 1838 he acted as chemical assistant to Prof. Silliman 

 at Yale College, after which he was appointed Mineralogist and 

 Geologist to the United States Exploring Expedition which was 

 to circumnavigate the world under Commander Charles Wilkes. 

 The cruise extended over four years (1838-1842), and the study 

 and description of the material collected by the Expedition oc- 

 cupied Dana for the followiiig thirteen years. 



During this expedition Dana devoted special attention to Corals 

 and Coral Islands as well as to Volcanoes ; and his views (inde- 

 pendently formed) harmonized in a remarkable manner with those 

 arrived at by Darwin. His report on the Zoophytes collected by 

 the Wilkes Expedition and his monograph on Corals and Coral 

 Islands are classical works. In 1890 appeared his ' Character- 

 istics of Volcanoes, with Contributions of Facts and Principles 

 from the Hawaiian Islands.' So long ago as 1837 he published a 

 ' Descriptive Mineralogy,' which has always been regarded as a 

 standard work of reference ; and his ' Manual of Geology,' issued 

 in 1863, has also held a similar position with regard to North- 

 American geology. In addition to these, he was the author of 

 about 200 separate papers dealing with physics, crystallography, 

 mineralogy, cosmical geology, and biology. 



In 1850 he was appointed Silliman Professor of Geology and 

 Natural History at Yale College ; and in 1864, on the death of 

 Prof. Silliman, became editor of the 'American Journal of Science,' 

 of which he had been associate-editor since 1846. He was an 

 original Member of the National Academy of Sciences of the 

 United States, and was President of the American Association 



