6l2 



NA TURE 



[April 25, 1895 



degree in the year 1S33. His appointment as Instructor 

 of Mathematics to the midshipmen of the United States 

 Navy gave him splendid opportunities for the study of 

 nature in various parts of the world, particularly in 

 France, Italy, and Turkey, opportunities of which he was 

 not slow to avail himself; more especially was his at- 

 tention attracted to the study of volcanic phenomena by 

 an ascent of X'esuvius, a sight of Stromboli, and an 

 excursion in the Island of Milo in the year 1S34. Settling 

 down for a short time, he acted as chemical assistant at 

 Yale College to his old teacher and friend, Prof. Silliman 

 (1836-38) ; but an opportunity again presenting jitself 

 of making a long voyage of marine observation, he 

 accepted the appointment of mineralogist and geologist 

 to the United States exploring expedition, which was to 

 proceed round the world. This expedition, under Charles 

 Wilkes as Commander, was admirably equipped for the 

 objects in view, and consisted of two sloops-of-war, 

 a store-ship, and a brig ; the cruise extended over four 

 years (1838-42), and the scientific staff included, in ad- 

 dition to Dana, Pickering, Couthoy, and Peale as 

 zoologists, Rich and Breckenridge as botanists, and Hale 

 as philologist. The memory of the events, scenes and 

 labours of this cruise was a constant joy to him during 

 the remaining fifty-three years of life. On at least two 

 occasions, however, he was in imminent peril : at one 

 time his vessel narrowly escaped destruction on the 

 rocks of Southern Fuegia, when the sea was dashing up 

 the cliffs to a height of two or three hundred feet, and all 

 the anchors had given way ; at another time his party 

 had to take to the boats empty-handed, and some hours 

 afterwards they saw the last vestige of the vessel which 

 had been their home for three years disappear beneath 

 the waves. 



The study of the material collected by the expedition 

 and the preparation of his reports occupied all the 

 available time during the next thirteen years. The first 

 two or three years were spent at Washington, but after 

 his marriage to the daughter of Prof Silliman he 

 removed back to New Haven, where he passed the rest 

 of his life. In 1S50 he was appointed Silliman 

 Professor of Geology and Natural History at Yale 

 College. In 1846 Mr. Dana had become associate-editor 

 of the American Journal of Science, and after the death 

 of Prof. Silliman, in 1S64, he became the principal editor 

 of that important scientific organ. 



Dana gave special attention to corals and coral 

 islands, and also to volcanoes. The Wilkes expedition 

 of 1838-42 followed in part the course taken by the 

 Beagle in 1831-36, and even where it diverged from that 

 route visited coral and volcanic islands such as have 

 been carefully described by Charles Darwin. When the 

 Wilkes expedition reached Sydney in 1839, Dana read 

 in the papers a brief statement of Darwm's theory of 

 the origin of the atoll and barrier forms of reefs ; this 

 mere paragraph was a great help to him in his 

 later work, and he afterwards regarded Darwin with 

 feelmgs of the deepest gratitude. A visit to the Fiji 

 Islands in 1840 brought before him facts such as had 

 been already noticed by Darwin elsewhere ; but there 

 they were on a still grander scale and of a more diversified 

 character, thus enabling him to speak even more posi- 

 tively of the theory than Darwin himself had thought it 

 philosophic to do. On other points the conclusions 

 arrived at by Darwin and Dana, independently of each 

 other, were for the most part the same, and differed only 

 in comparatively unimportant details. Dana's special 

 labours relative to corals ceased with the publication of 

 his report on the zoophytes collected by the expedition, 

 but an elaborate account (406 pages) of 'Corals and 

 Coral Islands was prepared by him and issued in 1879: 

 this was an extension of his expedition-report on Coral 

 Keefs and Coral Islands, which had been separately 

 published in 1853. In 1893 appeared another consider- 



NO. 1330, VOL. 5 1] 



able work (399 pages) entitled "Characteristics of 

 \'olcanoes, with contributions of facts and principles 

 from the Hawaiian Islands," which placed on record 

 much useful information collected by him during his 

 travels. 



In addition to these larger works, he was the author 

 of about two hundred separate papers. Some of them 

 are of a physical character : his first paper, published as 

 far back as 1833, dealing with the connection of electri- 

 city, heat and magnetism ; subsequent papers treated of 

 galvano-magnetic apparatus and the laws of cohesive 

 attraction as exemplified by crystals. t)ther papers, of a 

 purely crystallographic character (1S35-52), treated of the 

 drawing and lettering of crystal figures, of crystallo- 

 graphic symbols, and of the formation of twin growths ; 

 a series of volcanic papers discussed both lunar and 

 terrestrial volcanoes, the latter including those of Vesu- 

 vius, Cotopaxi, Arequipa, Mauna Loa, and Kilauea 

 (1835-68) ; a set of coral papers treated of the tempera- 

 ture limiting the distribution of coral?, on the area of 

 subsidence in the Pacific as indicated by the distribution 

 of coral islands, on the composition of corals and on 

 fossil corals (1S43-74). 



About forty papers are on mineralogical topics : many 

 of them are descriptive of particular mineral species ; 

 others treat of general subjects, such as nomenclature, 

 pseudomorphism, honiceomorphism, the connection 

 between crystalline form and chemical constitution, 

 and the origin of the constituent and adventitious 

 minerals of trap and the allied rocks. As illustrations 

 of the variety met with in his geological publications, we 

 may cite his papers on the origin of the grand outline 

 features of the earth, the origin of continents, 

 mountains and prairies, the early condition of the 

 earth's surface, the analogies between the modern 

 igneous rocks and the so-called primary formations, on 

 erosion, on denudation in the Pacific, on terraces, on 

 southern New England during the melting of the great 

 glacier, on the degradation of the rocks of New South 

 Wales, and the formation of valleys. The remaining 

 papers, about seventy in number, deal with biological sub- 

 jects, both recent and fossil, and have a similarly varied 

 character ; some being descriptive of species, others 

 treating of classification and similarly general problems. 



The importance of this scientific work was widely 

 recognised, and many marks of distinction were conferred 

 upon him, both at home and abroad. He was an 

 original member of the National Academy of Sciences 

 of the United States, and in the year 1854 occupied the 

 presidential chair of the American Association for the 

 .Vdvancement of .Science. In 1851 he was elected a 

 Foreign Member of the Geological Society of London, 

 and in 1872 received from that Society the Wollaston 

 -Medal, the highest compliment the tieological Society 

 can pay to the man of science ; in the same year the 

 University of .Munich honoured him with the degree of 

 Ph.D. ; in 1877 he was the recipient of the Copley 

 Medal of the Royal Society, and in 1SS4 was elected one 

 of the foreign members ; in 1S86 Harvard conferred 

 upon him the degree of LL.D. ; he was also an honorary 

 member of the -Academies of Paris, lierlin, Vienna, St. 

 Petersburg and Rome, and of the Slineralogical 

 Societies of England and of France. 



NOTES. 

 With the l^^cole Normale at Paris, wlilcli has just celebrated 

 its cenlcnary, the names of a number of distinguished men of 

 science are associated. At the present time, no less than 

 twelve of its old students are members of the Academy of 

 Sciences. Pasteur left Lille to become the direclor of scientific 

 studies at the school, and carried on, while in connection with il, 

 the researches which have made his name known thruughout 



