LIFE OF JAMES DWIGHT DANA 



curious," continues Signer Sella, " that in the Italian 

 branches of the Dana family, the taste for the natural 

 sciences is not rare. Casimiro Dana (lately Professor of 

 Literature in the University of Turin) mentions to me 

 five Danas, all naturalists or physicians medical men." 

 Thus far I have followed the family genealogy and the 

 Italian theory accepted by the subject of this memoir. 

 I am, however, compelled to add that this is not all re- 

 garded as the truth by other members of the family. One 

 of them who has paid much attention to the genealogical 

 records, Miss Elizabeth E. Dana, has been so kind as to 

 give me for insertion here some of the data which she has 

 discovered. She writes that the name Dana was found 

 in Manchester, England, in the middle of the seventeenth 

 century, where may be found the record of a Richard 

 Dana's baptism, October 3 1, 1617; but whether or not this 

 is the original settler at Cambridge has not been deter- 

 mined so far as I can learn. Qbed Dana was an Oxford 

 B.A. in 1650. There are Danas now living in England 

 who are descendants of Rev. Edmund Dana of Massa- 

 chusetts. Three or four Dana families, not of the New 

 England stock, are now residents of the United States, 

 one of them of German parentage (possibly Dahne) ; one, 

 Canadian; and one which came from Londonderry, Ire- 

 land, some forty years ago. The origin of the family 

 whether Italian or French, is still open to investigation. 

 Interesting accounts of the family have appeared in 

 Munsey's Magazine, for 1896, and with many noteworthy 

 details, in the Brighton Item, between March 18, and 

 April 29, 1899, by J. P. C. Winship. 



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