NATURE 



409 



THURSDAY, MARCH i, 1900. 



JAMES DWIGHT DANA. 

 The Life of fames Dwight Dana, Scientific Explorer, 

 Mineralogist, Geologist, Zoologist, Professor in Yale 

 University. By Daniel C. Oilman, President of the 

 John Hopkins University. With illustrations. Pp. 

 409. (New York and London : Harper and Brothers, 

 1899-) 



SHORTLY after the death of Dana in 1895, a very 

 admirable sketch of the scientific career of his 

 father, from the pen of Prof. E. Salisbury Dana, appeared 

 in the pages of the American Journal of Science; but 

 the numerous friends and admirers of the distinguished 

 man— who for many years was justly regarded as the 

 foremost representative of science in the United States- 

 will welcome the fuller memoir now given to the world by 

 his old pupil and friend, President Oilman. 



There appears to be some difference of opinion as to 

 whether the members of the Dana family were descended 

 from an Italian or a French stock, but there is little doubt 

 that there were Danas settled in England early in the 

 seventeenth century, and that the ancestor of the 

 American branch was one Richard Dana, who about 

 1640 emigrated to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Many 

 bearers of the name have attained distinction as divines, 

 lawyers, or literary men ; but the father of the great 

 naturalist was engaged in business in the little town of 

 Utica, New York, and it was only the strong bent 

 towards the study of science, which young James Dwight 

 Dana so early betrayed, that led to his abandonment of 

 conmiercial pursuits, and his devotion to those studies 

 in which he afterwards attained so much distinction. 



In the education of Dana we have a striking illustra- 

 tion of the great results that may follow from the efforts 

 of a teacher possessed of enthusiasm and originality — 

 even when he himself may not be distinguished as a 

 scientific discoverer. Dana's capacity for scientific work 

 would seem to have been detected and encouraged by a 

 Mr. Fay Egerton, a teacher in the Utica High School. 

 We are told that 



" Mr. Egerton gave lectures in a moderately-furnished 

 laboratory" (this was in the year 1827, in a little back- 

 woods settlement of only five or six thousand inhabi- 

 tants!) "successively in chemistry, botany, mineralogy 

 and geology, to classes of the older students, who in 

 turn were required, after a study of the topic, to give 

 back the lecture witli its experiments to the teacher and 

 their fellows of the class. He was an enthusiast in his 

 own line of study and instruction. Besides his lectures 

 in the lecture-room, he scoured the country round either 

 with or without his pupils, showing them where to go 

 in pursuit of whatever was instructive or curious, assisted 

 thern in the naming and care of their specimens, and 

 inspired them with new zeal for natural science. During 

 the long summer vacations he made long excursions 

 with half-a-dozen or more of his class to different parts 

 of the State or to neighbouring ones, visiting localities 

 that abounded in particular rocks or minerals, and bring- 

 ing home stores for their own or the school collection. 

 These excursions were made almost wholly on foot, a 

 single horse and waggon accompanying the party to carry 

 their scanty wardrobe and relieve the oft-burdened 

 mineral satchel worn by each of them, until such time 

 as they reached a suitable place for shipment." • 

 NO. 1583, VOL. 61] 



Every teacher of elementary science in this country 

 may well find encouragement inVeading this description 

 of the labours of Fay Egerton. Who can say that 

 among the bright-faced boys watching the experiments 

 or eagerly scanning the specimens shown to them a 

 future Dana may not be present ? 



It affords a curious comment on the methods of edu- 

 cation in this country if we remember that at the very 

 time when Fay Egerton was labouring m a little back 

 settlement of New York to develop the scientific tastes of 

 his pupils, Charles Darwin and his elder brother were 

 being publicly reprimanded in the Shrewsbury Grammar 

 School for wasting their time in setting up a laboratory in 

 which to carry on their experiments ! 



In 1830, when only seventeen years of age, Dana left 

 Utica and entered Yale College, New Haven, Connecticut, 

 where he came under the influence of Prof. Benjamin 

 Silliman, whose daughter he subsequently married. After 

 taking his degree in 1833, he became an instructor of 

 midshipmen in the U.S. Navy, and sailed in the war- 

 ship Delaware to the Mediterranean, visiting the coasts 

 of France, Italy, Oreece and Asia Minor, It was during 

 this voyage that he wrote his first paper, an account of a 

 visit to Vesuvius, which was published in the American 

 Journal of Science. 



Returning to the United States, a period of suspense, 

 but not of inaction, followed. While seeking for a 

 scientific post, and acting as honorary assistant to Prof. 

 Silliman, he prepared the first edition of his " Treatise on 

 Mineralogy," a work which, being continually improved 

 and enlarged in the five successive editions that have 

 appeared in the last sixty years, will always remain a 

 monument of Dana's great attainments and vast industry. 



In 1838 Dana was appointed one of the naturalists 

 to the celebrated exploring expedition under Commodore 

 Wilkes. It is interesting to notice how curiously the 

 careers of Dana and of Asa Gray, the botanist, were in- 

 fluenced by their mutual friendship. Asa Gray succeeded 

 Fay Egerton as teacher of science in the Utica High 

 School, though it does not appear that Dana was ever 

 one of his pupils. When the United States Government 

 determined to send out an exploring expedition, however. 

 Gray accepted the post of naturalist, and it was by his per- 

 suasion that Dana was induced to do the same. But at the 

 last moment Gray withdrew, while Dana, as is well known, 

 accompanied the expedition throughout the whole cruise. 

 Gray and Dana were lifelong friends, and among the 

 most interesting letters in the volume before us is the 

 correspondence that passed between them, especially that 

 portion of it relating to the doctrine of evolution. 



The United States exploring expedition consisted of 

 five vessels, and between the years 1838 and 1842 it 

 circumnavigated the globe, visiting the islands of the 

 Atlantic and passing through the Straits of Magellan 

 to the west coast of South America ; thence through the 

 Paumotu, Tahiti and Samoan groups to Australia, 

 whence a portion of the expedition proceeded south, and 

 discovered land in the Antarctic Ocean. While at 

 Sydney, Dana first heard of the theory which Darwin 

 had shortly before propounded to account for the origin 

 of atolls and barrier-reefs, and during the remainder of 

 the voyage, which led him by way of New Zealand to 

 the Fiii Islands, the Sandwich Islands, the Kingsmill 



