LIFE OF JAMES DWIGHT DANA 



to ascribe largely to two causes, one that of having spent 

 much of his early life in the country, the other, his first 

 teacher. In connection with the first he used to deplore 

 the lack of development of the faculties of observation 

 and the ignorance of nature consequent upon life in the 

 city, and placed a high estimate upon the education un- 

 consciously gained by an association with the beings and 

 phenomena of the natural world. As an illustration of 

 this, the author recalls an occasion when, having passed 

 in vain nearly around the class for a statement of the dif- 

 ferences between a moss and a phenogamous plant, Pro- 

 fessor Dana turned to one of the few remaining who had 

 not confessed their ignorance, with the remark, ' You are 

 from the country; you ought to know/ And he did. 



" Professor Dana's first teacher was an ardent student 

 of nature who was wont to go with his pupils on long 

 tramps for the purpose of collecting minerals, plants, and 

 insects, and aroused in them much of his own eagerness 

 for the pursuit of knowledge. It is therefore but just 

 that some of the fame of his distinguished pupil should 

 be attributed to him. One incident which Professor 

 Dana used to relate to illustrate his teacher's fervor as a 

 collector was that when on one occasion his little party 

 had gathered at a remote place more mineral specimens 

 than they could carry in their hands, the master, in pref- 

 erence to leaving any behind, improvised a bag from a 

 pair of trousers, and thus bore them safely to their 

 destination." 



It must not be supposed that the duties of Professor 

 Dana were only those required by the college. His self- 

 imposed tasks were equally engrossing. In the first place 

 there was the supervision of the American Journal of 

 Science. Of course he was assisted in this arduous and 

 unceasing work by able collaborators, resident and non- 

 resident; but the reading and selection of articles, the 

 oversight of the press, the conduct of the correspond- 

 ence, and the financial burden devolved upon him as the 

 managing editor. Then his work as an author was also 

 continuous. The three great Reports, the successive 

 editions of the Mineralogy, the Manual of Geology and 



