12 Dana — American Journal of Science, 1818-1918. 



best tribute is that of James Dwight Dana, given in his 

 inaugural address upon the occasion of his beginning his 

 duties as Silliman professor of geology in Yale College. 

 This was delivered on February 18, 1856, in what was 

 then known as the "Cabinet Building." Dana says 

 in part : 



"In entering upon the duties of this place, my thoughts turn 

 rather to the past than to the subject of the present hour. I 

 feel that it is an honored place, honored by the labors of one 

 who has been the guardian of American Science from its child- 

 hood ; who here first opened to the country the wonderful 

 records of geology ; whose words of eloquence and earnest truth 

 were but the overflow of a soul full of noble sentiments and 

 warm sympathies, the whole throwing a peculiar charm over 

 his learning, and rendering his name beloved as well as illus- 

 trious. Just fifty years since, Professor Silliman took his sta- 

 tion at the head of chemical and geological science in this college. 

 Geology was then hardly known by name in the land, out of 

 these walls. Two years before, previous to his tour in Europe, 

 the whole cabinet of Yale was a half -bushel of unlabelled stones. 

 On visiting England he found even in London no school public 

 or private, for geological instruction, and the science was not 

 named in the English universities. To the mines, quarries, and 

 cliffs of England, the crags of Scotland, and the meadows of 

 Holland he looked for knowledge, and from these and the teach- 

 ings of Murray, Jameson, Hall, Hope, and Playfair, at Edin- 

 burgh, Professor Silliman returned, equipped for duty, — albeit 

 a great duty, — that of laying the foundation, and creating 

 almost out of nothing a department not before recognized in any 

 institution in America. 



He began his work in 1806. The science was without books — 

 and, too, without system, except such as its few cultivators had 

 each for himself in his conceptions. It was the age of the first 

 beginnings of geology, when Wernerians and Huttonians were 

 arrayed in a contest. . . . Professor Silliman when at Edin- 

 burgh witnessed the strife, and while, as he says, his earliest 

 predilections were for the more peaceful mode of rock-making, 

 these soon yielded to the accumulating evidence, and both views 

 became combined in his mind in one harmonious whole. The 

 science, thus evolved, grew with him and by him; for his own 

 labors contributed to its extension. Every year was a year of 

 expansion and onward development, and the grandeur of the 

 opening views found in him a ready and appreciative response. 



And while the sciences and truth have thus made progress 

 here, through these labors of fifty years, the means of study in 

 the institution have no less increased. Instead of that half- 



