LIFE OF JAMES DWIGHT DANA 



whether we are mineralogists or observers of the growth 

 of a mind, the story is instructive. Take the world over, 

 I suppose that his work on Mineralogy is better known 

 than any of his other writings. 



We know that as a schoolboy he began to collect the 

 rocks and minerals of Oneida County. In college he had 

 engaged in similar work. During the cruise he was on 

 the alert for the discovery of new facts, and for the 

 further consideration of those that were not new to him. 

 Thus he wrote to Professor Silliman, December 29, 1834: 



" My cruise in the Levant was quite an interesting 

 one, but not so much so as it would have been had we 

 not, on our arrival at Smyrna, found the plague there. 

 On account of it, it was not possible for me to visit Con- 

 stantinople, a place I had much desired to see. This, 

 however, led to my discovering an interesting locality of 

 minerals near Vourla, twenty miles from Smyrna, where 

 we spent most of our time while in the Archipelago. It 

 was a locality of yellow jasper and common opal, both 

 in situ. The rock was a lime-rock. Frequently these 

 two minerals were disseminated the one through the 

 other. The query arose in my mind, whether their situa- 

 tion did not correspond with that of the hornstone in one 

 of our lime-rocks (the corniferous of Eaton). The opal 

 often appeared to degenerate into a mineral between flint 

 and hornstone. I afterwards found the lime-rock at 

 Athens to contain veins of red hornstone, but the fact, 

 the limestone being very nearly the same, convinced me 

 that the above supposition was in reality a fact. I will 

 hand you specimens on my arrival in New Haven, and 

 receive, if you please, your opinion with regard to them." 



In the notes which were previously mentioned, a 

 record of his studies while at sea, and of his observations 

 on the geology of Minorca, has been preserved. Thus 

 on this Mediterranean voyage, when only twenty-one and 

 twenty-two years old, the future zoologist, mineralogist, 

 and geologist was pursuing, without a living teacher, his 

 graduate studies, and engaging, without a personal guide, 



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