62 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NEW HAVEN MEETING 



experienced or mediocre man, and makes the great men of science, letters, and 

 art something more than mere names to hundreds and even thousands of influ- 

 ential men all over the country. One of my own classmates, who has never 

 pretended to any special knowledge of geology, was so impressed with the ex- 

 position in the required course of the Darwin-Dana theory of the formation of 

 coral islands that he offered to tit out an expedition to enable Professor Dana 

 to accomplish his favorite scheme of sinking one or more deep borings in some 

 atoll of the South Pacific to test it. The naturalist, however, was already 71, 

 and he reluctantly decided that he was too old to undertake the work. Pro- 

 fessor Dana's lectures, nevertheless, were an important factor in influencing 

 this young man to foster science with a portion of his wealth during the suc- 

 ceeding years. 



My own experience under Professor Dana began in the fall of 1883, in the 

 required geology course, and well do I recall the courtly gentleman in the 

 class-room and on the field excursion. Peahody Museum was then a new 

 building and he was very proud of it. for he had had much to do with the 

 plans for its internal arrangement. The geology lectures were given in the 

 large hall, on the ground floor, that still serves the same purpose, and its origi- 

 nal conveniences were devised by Professor Dana. Promptly on the hour, the 

 modest and unassuming hut still impressive man would appear from his office 

 and hegin lecture or recitation with a nervous energy that bespoke the industry 

 and concentration which enabled him to accomplish the great amount of work 

 that stands to his credit. Lectures were crowded with fact and condensed in 

 delivery ; a student could not afford to miss a word. Recitations went forward 

 with no waste of time. I recall no obvious effort at discipline in the class- 

 room, the personality of the instructor seeming to eliminate all thought of 

 disorder from the mind of even the most irresponsible student. 



In recitation hearing Dana was confined to the text-book before him. evi- 

 dently thinking it a waste of energy to commit to memory himself the exact 

 limits of the knowledge that could fairly be expected from the class; but his 

 remarks on the subject of the day were drawn from his own wide fund of 

 personal experience, which was always presented in the most impersonal way. 

 supplemented by up-to-date reading. He had wonderful facility in assimilating 

 and presenting the facts and worthy ideas brought out by others, but at the 

 same time he had the rarer faculty of remembering the sources of such facts 

 and ideas and the candor to give credit where credit was due. Professor Dana 

 was. however, no mere recitation hearer. Class-room work was onerous to 

 him. I think, though he was faithful to it through the honesty of his nature, 

 which did not permit him to slight any duty or shirk any task. The boys who 

 worked and who manifested a real interest in the earth sciences received full 

 measure of his time and his talents ; but those who tried to "bluff" their way 

 through his classes encountered serious obstacles in the keen wit of the kindly 

 old gentleman. 



The excursions of senior year took us to West. Pine. Mill, and East Rocks, 

 forming the familiar rampart of diabase sills and dikes bounding New Haven 

 on the north ; to the Woodbridge Hills and Judges Cave, to see a train of huge 

 glacial boulders ; to the kettle holes of Beaver Pond meadows and cross-sec- 

 tions of the New Haven sand plain ; to Red Rock and the faultscarps of Tri- 

 assic sandstone in Fair Haven and East Haven. One exceptional trip was 



