Niles.] 498 [April 17, 
The President remarked that death had deprived the Society 
of one of the most ilhistrious of its Honorary' Members, Prof. 
James Dwight Dana of New Haven. 
He was elected at the meeting held Dec. 19, 18 66. When he 
had accepted and his name had been enrolled in her list of 
members, it was the Society which had been honored, for he was 
ah-eady well known as a distinguished naturalist. The twenty- 
nine years of his life which remained have continually added to 
Ms renown and to our gratification. In 1892, the Society had 
the privilege of awarding the Grand Honorary Prize of one 
thousand dollars to Professor Dana for extraordinary merit of 
investigation and discoveiy in natural history. 
To become a master in one branch of science is now justly 
regarded as an honorable achievement, but Professor Dana was 
a master in each of three grand divisions of natm'al history, in 
zoology, in mineralogy, and in geology. The remarkable range 
of his investigations, the magnitude of his scientific publications, 
and the importasce of his deductions and drecoveries clearly 
placed him among the great naturalists of the world. 
The numerous and sometimes imperial volumes in which many 
of the results of his studies have been recorded had been placed 
upon the table. While recounting his labors as a zoologist, a 
mineralogist, and a geologist Professor Niles spoke of the larger 
of his works in each science in the order of their publication, 
and he called attention to the large number of plates di-awn by 
Professor Dana for the folio atlases of his great works upon 
Zoophytes and Crustacea. He also mentioned the long list of his 
scientific papers, especially noticing certain series of them which 
had been collected into volumes, as those upon Taconic rocks of 
the Green Mountain region. The Quaternary in New Eng- 
land, The volcanoes and volcanic phenomena of the Hawaiian 
Islands, and The classification of animals based on the principle 
of cephalization. He also referred to his multiplied conti-ibutions 
to the American journal of science and other current publica- 
tions. He was also a careful and painstaking worker, and his 
voluminous writings are to be valued for their completeness and 
accm-acy. His well-done work was fi-equently revised, and the 
new editions of some of his books show hoAv constantlv he read. 
