placed at his disposal. No such aids were given two generations ago. 
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 largeness 
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 distinctively 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 unbounded 
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,’” 
20 
