IX PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May 1 896, 



expedition consisted of five ships, the route pursued being briefly 

 as follows : — First to Madeira, then to Rio Janeiro, down the coast 

 and through the Straits of Magellan, after passing which, while on 

 board the ' Relief,' he nearly suffered shipwreck off Noir Island, the 

 ship remaining for three days and nights in extreme peril ; in the 

 same storm one of the smaller accompanying vessels was lost. 

 Thence they sailed to Chili, Peru, and across to the Paumotus, to 

 Tahiti, and the Navigator Islands ; then to New South Wales, 

 where the naturalists remained while Commodore Wilkes went into 

 the Antarctic region ; then to New Zealand and the Fiji Islands, 

 where two of the officers were murdered by the natives ; thence to 

 the Sandwich Islands, the Kingsmill group, the Caroline Islands, 

 and north to the coast of Oregon. Here, near the mouth of the 

 Columbia river, the ' Peacock,' the ship to which Dana had been 

 assigned, was wrecked, entailing the loss of all his personal effects, 

 as well as many of his collections. He then made one of the party 

 that crossed the mountains near Mount Shasta, and found their way 

 down the Sacramento river to San Francisco. In his report of the 

 expedition he states that the geological features indicated the 

 probable presence of gold. This was six years before the discovery 

 of gold in California, and rich mines have since been discovered in 

 the region over which the party went. At San Francisco they 

 were taken on board the ' Yincennes ' and the homeward voyage 

 was made by way of the Sandwich Islands, Singapore, the Cape of 

 Good Hope, and St. Helena, arriving in New York in June, 1842. 

 As a result of his connexion with the expedition he published the 

 Reports on Geology, Crustacea, and Zoophyta, and spent in all 

 thirteen years editing and superintending the printed reports 

 resulting from these voyages. In 1855 he succeeded to the Chair 

 of Mineralogy at Yale, a position which he held till 1894, when he 

 resigned. His * Manual of Geology' appeared in 1863, a fourth 

 edition having been issued only last year, 1895. He was part 

 editor of the 'American Journal of Science ' from 1 846, and con- 

 tinued his interest in it up to the last. 



Dana received the Copley Medal from the Royal Society in 1877, 

 and the Wollaston Medal from the Geological Society in 1872 ; he 

 was a member of the Academy of Sciences, Paris, and of the 

 Academies of Berlin and Munich. Moreover, he was elected a 

 Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 1884, and of the Geological 

 Society in 1851. 



His publications amount to nearly 400 in number, and when one 



