DANA CENTENARY 57 



was far in advance of his time in his methods of scientific instruction. Dana 

 entered the sophomore class of Yale College in 1830, and was duly graduated 

 in 1833. The strongest influence in his college life toward the shaping of his 

 future career was that of the elder Benjamin Silliman, whose pioneer work in 

 chemistry and geology was giving renown to Yale College. The year following 

 his graduation he served as instructor in mathematics in the School for Mid- 

 shipmen on the United States ship Delaware in a cruise in the Mediterranean. 

 A letter to Professor Silliman, describing Vesuvius as he saw it at this time, 

 was the first of his long series of papers published in the American Journal 

 of Science. In 1836 he was appointed assistant to Professor Silliman. At 

 that time he was devoting his attention chiefly to mineralogy, and his first 

 important scientific work, the "System of Mineralogy," was published in 1837. 

 It is remarkable that a book representing so large an amount of research 

 should have been produced by a man only twenty-four years old and only four 

 years out of college. 



The four years, from 1838 to 1842, stand sharply in contrast with the simple 

 and uneventful course of the remainder of his life. In those years he was one 

 of the naturalists attached to the United States exploring expedition under 

 the command of Lieutenant, afterwards Admiral. Wilkes. In the voyages of 

 those years he crossed the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, doubled the 

 two great capes, traversed numerous coral archipelagoes in the Pacific, had 

 two narrow escapes from shipwreck — one of them on a reef among the can- 

 nibal islands of the Kingsmill group — and actually suffered shipwreck on the 

 bar at the mouth of the Columbia River. Dana did not participate in the 

 cruise along the shore of the Antarctic continent, which was, in a purely geo- 

 graphical point of view, the most memorable achievement of the expedition. 

 While some of the ships of the expedition were engaged in that Antarctic 

 cruise, the naturalists were left behind for work in Australia and New Zea- 

 land. In the official distribution of the scientific work of the expedition. Dana 

 was responsible for the geology and part of the zoology. The results of bis 

 work were embodied in three great reports, dealing respectively with zoo- 

 phytes, Crustacea, and geology, and published between 1846 and 1854. These 

 years of world-wide travel vastly enlarged the sphere of Dana's geological 

 observation and furnished much material for the thinking of later years. In 

 the study of the coral archipelagoes of the Pacific he accumulated a vast 

 amount of observation, which made him in after years the chief expounder 

 and defender of the theory of subsidence, first offered by Darwin in explana- 

 tion of barrier reefs and atolls. 



In 184G Dana became one of the editors of (he American Journal of Science, 

 with which he was associated for the remainder of his life. In I860 he was 

 elected professor of natural history in Yale, and in ISC, I professor of geologj 

 and mineralogy. lie did not. however, enter upon the work of teaching until 

 1855, the years preceding that date being devoted to the preparation and pub- 

 lication of the reports of the exploring expedition. Do was engaged in the 

 work of teaching, except for short limes when lie was disabled l>.\ illness, until 

 1890. In 1894 he became professor emeritus. His service as a teacher in Yale 

 University was not only of great value to the Institution and to ti 1( « large 

 number of students who came under bis instruction, but was undoubtedly I 

 benefit to him as an investigator. The work of exposition is an :iiil to clear 



