OBITUARY. 



JAMES DWIGHT DANA. 



Born February 12, 1813. Died April 15, 1895. 



AMERICA has to deplore the loss of one of the greatest of her 

 sons in the death of this eminent zoologist, mineralogist, and 

 geologist, which occurred at New York on April 15. James Dwight 

 Dana was born at Utica, New York, February 12, 1813. He entered 

 Yale College, where he graduated in 1833, paying especial attention 

 to the natural sciences and mathematics. His first position was that 

 of teacher of mathematics to midshipmen in the United States navy, 

 and in the course of his work he visited the Mediterranean. Return- 

 ing to America in 1835 he became assistant to Benjamin Silliman, 

 whom he ultimately succeeded in the chair of Mineralogy at Yale. 

 So early as 1837, Dana published his " System of Mineralogy," a 

 work which has run through many editions, and is undoubtedly the 

 first on the subject. The sixth and last edition was published in 1892, 

 and in this he was largely assisted by his son. In 1836 he was fortu- 

 nate enough to be appointed Mineralogist and Geologist to the 

 Wilkes' Exploring Expedition to the Southern and Pacific Oceans. 

 This expedition sailed in 1838 and returned in 1843, and for the next 

 thirteen years Dana was engaged in editing the various reports sent 

 in for publication, and himself contributed the reports on Geology, on 

 Crustacea, and on Zoophytes, making, with few exceptions, the 

 drawings of the animals himself. In 1850 he was elected as Professor 

 Silliman's successor; but it was not till five years later that he took 

 up the work. In 1854 he was President of the American Association 

 for the Advancement of Science, his annual address being delivered 

 at Providence in 1855. In 1863 the first edition of his "Manual of 

 Geology " appeared, and this book has attained, so far as American 

 geology is concerned, a position equal to that of his " System of 

 Mineralogy " ; only this year (1895) a new edition has been published, 

 and the manuscript for this, we are informed, was in the veteran Pro- 

 fessor's own handwriting. 



" Corals and Coral Islands," another well-known book, appeared 

 in 1872, while his " Characteristics of Volcanoes " did not see the 

 light till 1890. His contributions to serial and academical literature 

 were very numerous, and since 1846 he had been an editor of 

 the "American Journal of Science," the best known of scientific 

 serials of the United States, which was founded by the elder Silliman 

 in 1818. He resigned his Yale Professorship in 1894. 



