DANA 



1695 



DANA 



Church, Brooklyn, and four years later, on the 

 death of his father, succeeded him as director 

 of the Oratorio and Symphony societies. The 

 Damrosch Opera Company, founded by him 

 in 1894 for the production of Wagner's music- 

 dramas, toured the United States for several 

 seasons. 



Between 1900 and 1902 he conducted the 

 German operas at the Metropolitan Opera 

 House, in 1902 began a season with the Phil- 

 harmonic Society, and in 1903 brought about 

 the reorganization of the New York Symphony 

 Orchestra as a permanent orchestra. This 

 organization is now one of the best of its 

 kind. The compositions of Damrosch include 

 two operas, The Scarlet Letter and Cyrano de 

 Bergerac, a Te Deum, a sonata for violin and 

 piano, and several songs. 



DANA, da'na, CHARLES ANDERSON (1819- 

 1897), for twenty-five years the most noted of 

 American journalists, was born at Hinsdale, 

 N. H. While working in his uncle's store in 

 Buffalo he prepared himself for Harvard Col- 

 lege and entered in 1839, but was obliged to 

 leave after two years on account of trouble 

 with his eyes. In 1842 he became a member 

 of the Brook Farm Association and edited The 

 Harbinger in Boston in its interest (see BROOK 

 FARM). In 1847 he joined the staff of the 

 New York Tribune and later became its man- 

 aging editor, resigning from this post on ac- 

 count of differences of opinion with Horace 

 Greeley regarding Mexican War policies. Dur- 

 ing the latter part of the War of Secession 

 (1863-1864) he was assistant Secretary of War 

 under Stanton. After the war he edited the 

 Chicago Republican for a time, but it failed 

 and he returned to New York. 



In 1868 he became part owner and editor- 

 in-chief of the New York Sun, holding this 

 position during the remainder of his life and 

 conducting its interests and policies with such 

 remarkable success as to raise its valuation to 

 $5,000,000. "If you see it in the Sun, it's so," 

 he made the slogan of that journal. The 

 American Encyclopedia was edited under his 

 direction, and he also collaborated with Gen- 

 eral J. H. 1 Wilson in a Life of Grant. Dana 

 possessed keen judgment and brilliant intellect 

 and his editorials in the Sun were widely read 

 for their literary quality. 



DANA, JAMES DWIGHT (1813-1895), an Amer- 

 ican geologist and one of the most eminent 

 scientists of the nineteenth century. In his 

 early school days in Utica, N. Y., his birth- 

 place, he eagerly devoted himself to the study 



of the natural sciences. After graduating from 

 Yale m 1833, he was appointed instructor in 

 the United States navy. This position gave 

 him unusual opportunity for travel and inves- 

 tigation. As a member of the Wilkes Explora- 

 tion Expedition (1838-1842), sent out by the 

 United States government to explore remote 

 parts of the Pacific Ocean, he made many 

 interesting discoveries concerning marine ani- 

 mals, which he later described in books and 

 reports. From 1855 to 1890 he served as pro- 

 fessor of natural history at Yale, and for forty- 

 nine years was editor of the American Journal 

 of Science, in which many of his papers were 

 published. Among his noted works are System 

 of Mineralogy, Manual of Geology, Text-Book 

 of Geology, Coral Reefs and Islands and re- 

 ports on Zoophytes, Geology and Crustacea. 



DANA, RICHARD HENRY (1815-1882), the 

 author of Two Years Before the Mast, one of 

 the immortal books of American literature for 

 boys. From his earliest boyhood Dana had 

 a passion for the sea, and except for powerful 

 pressure from his family, would have entered 

 the United States navy. Yielding to their 

 wishes he entered Harvard College, and was 

 apparently started on the beaten path which 

 would have made him a distinguished Boston 

 lawyer. In later life he did become one of 

 the foremost American authorities on interna- 

 tional law, but his work as a lawyer will be 

 long forgotten when Two Years Before the 

 Mast still has a place in the heart of every 

 boy. 



At nineteen Dana was a junior in college, 

 when failing eyesight forced him to give up 

 his studies. He shipped on the brig Pilgrim 

 for a two years' cruise around Cape Horn and 

 along the west coast of North and South Amer- 

 ica. His father, also Richard Henry Dana 

 (1787-1879), a lawyer and poet of reputation, 

 possessed social prominence and independent 

 means, and young Dana might have gone on 

 a pleasure cruise, a gentleman in search of 

 health. Instead, he shipped as a common 

 sailor, and for two years there was no burden- 

 some task, no harsh treatment, no stormy 

 weather which constituted the routine for the 

 common sailor, that he did not know at first 

 hand. At twenty-two, he wrote the story of 

 these 'years, probably the most accurate record 

 of a sailor's life ever written. It has not only 

 the value of a record, but it has the touch of 

 imagination, of the wonder and mystery of the 

 sea which will make it a living book so long 

 as sea and sky endure. It was distributed by 



