LIFE OF JAMES DWIGHT DANA 



At length released from zoophytes and crustaceans, 

 Dana turned to " the age of man," and appeared at his 

 academic post, February 18, 1856, and on that day 

 delivered his inaugural discourse. The senior class, a 

 few members of the faculty, and perhaps a dozen other 

 persons met in what was then known as the geological 

 lecture-room, in the old cabinet building, and listened to 

 a discourse which began with this gratifying reference to 

 the predecessor of the lecturer : 



" In entering upon the duties of this place, my 

 thoughts turn rather to the past than to the sub- 

 ject of the present hour. I feel that it is an honored 

 place, honored by the labors of one who has been the 

 guardian of American Science from its childhood ; who 

 here first opened to the country the wonderful records of 

 Geology; whose words of eloquence and earnest truth 

 were but the overflow of a soul full of noble sentiments 

 and warm sympathies, the whole throwing a peculiar 

 charm over his learning, and rendering his name belovec 

 as well as illustrious. Just fifty years since, Professor 

 Silliman took his station at the head of chemical and geo- 

 logical science in this college. Geology was then hardlj 

 known by name in the land, out of these walls. Two 

 years before, previous to his tour in Europe, the whole 

 cabinet of Yale was a half-bushel of unlabelled stones. 

 On visiting England, he found even in London no school, 

 public or private, for geological instruction, and the science 

 was not named in the English universities. To the mines, 

 quarries, and cliffs of England, the crags of Scotland, and 

 the meadows of Holland he looked for knowledge, and 

 from these and the teachings of Murray, Jameson, Hall, 

 Hope, and Playfair, at Edinburgh, Professor Silliman re- 

 turned, equipped for duty, albeit a great duty, that of 

 laying the foundation, and creating almost out of noth- 

 ing a department not before recognized in any institu- 

 tion in America. 



" He began his work in 1806. The science was with- 

 out books and, too, without system, except such as its 

 few cultivators had each for himself in his conceptions. 

 It was the age of the first beginnings of geology, when 



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