PROFESSOR LE CONTE'S PORTRAIT 



of science, or of the tendencies of modern investiga- 

 tion, did he speak out loud against such bigotry, yet 

 always in an extenuating tone, as if he would remove the 

 error and instruct the writer. Just before the expedition 

 sailed, he became a member of the First church of Christ 

 in New Haven, and in later life he was a communicant in 

 the college church and was constant in his attendance 

 upon divine worship. For a considerable period he was 

 frequently present at the meetings of the Connecticut 

 Academy of Arts and Sciences, and of " The Club/' 

 already described. He was invited to become a mem- 

 ber of a social dining club, with Agassiz, Gray, Bache, 

 Gould, and others, but the project seems to have fallen 

 through. In national politics he was deeply interested, 

 and in all the controversies that preceded the Civil War 

 he was strongly devoted to the cause of the Union, but 

 never a participant in public meetings. In his prime he 

 attended the meetings of the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, at New Haven, Albany, 

 Washington, for example, and took part in the proceed- 

 ings ; and for a while, until failing health prevented, he 

 was a participant in the meetings of the National Academy 

 of Science. 



To the foregoing delineations, which are drawn by one 

 who knew Professor Dana only in his later life, will be 

 added a vivid sketch of a previous date. This was writ- 

 ten in 1850, and gives the impression of his appearance 

 among scientific men when he was not quite forty years 

 old. The writer is Professor Joseph Le Conte, of the 

 University of California. 



' The first meeting of the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science that I ever attended was the 

 New Haven meeting in 1850. Professor Dana read a 

 short paper on ' The Analogy, in Reproduction, between 

 the Hydroids and Plants,' showing how the nutritive 

 individuals and the reproductive individuals of the one 



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