James Dwight Dana
From Wikipedia
James Dwight Dana FRS FRSE (February 12, 1813 – April 14,
1895) was an American geologist, mineralogist, volcanologist, and zoologist. He
made pioneering studies of mountain-building, volcanic activity, and the origin
and structure of continents and oceans around the world.
Early life and career
Dana was born February 12, 1813, in Utica, New York. His
father was merchant James Dana (1780–1860) and his mother was Harriet Dwight
(1792–1870). Through his mother he was related to the Dwight New England family
of missionaries and educators including uncle Harrison Gray Otis Dwight and
first cousin Henry Otis Dwight. He showed an early interest in science, which
had been fostered by Fay Edgerton, a teacher in the Utica high school, and in 1830
he entered Yale College in order to study under Benjamin Silliman the elder.
Graduating in 1833, for the next two years he was teacher of
mathematics to midshipmen in the Navy, and sailed to the Mediterranean while
engaged in his duties. In 1836 and 1837 he was assistant to Professor Silliman
in the chemical laboratory at Yale, and then, for four years, acted as
mineralogist and geologist of the United States Exploring Expedition, commanded
by Captain Charles Wilkes, in the Pacific Ocean. His labors in preparing the
reports of his explorations occupied parts of thirteen years after his return
to America in 1842. His notebooks from the four years of travel contained fifty
sketches, maps, and diagrams, including views of both Mount Shasta and Castle
Crags. Dana's sketch of Mount Shasta was engraved in 1849 for publication in
the American Journal of Science and Arts (which Silliman had founded in 1818),
along with a lengthy article based on Dana's 1841 geological notes. In the article
he described in scientific terms the rocks, minerals, and geology of the Shasta
region. As far as is known, his sketch of Mount Shasta became the second view
of the mountain ever published.
In 1844 he again became a resident of New Haven, and married
Professor Silliman's daughter, Henrietta Frances Silliman. In 1850, he was
appointed as Silliman's successor, as Silliman Professor of Natural History and
Geology in Yale College, a position which he held until 1892. In 1846 he became
joint editor, and during the later years of his life was chief editor, of the
American Journal of Science and Arts, to which he was a constant contributor,
principally of articles on geology and mineralogy.
Dana, painted by Daniel Huntington in 1858
The 1849 publication of his geology of Mount Shasta was
undoubtedly a response to the California gold rush publicity. Dana was the
pre-eminent U.S. geologist of his time, and he also was one of the few trained
observers anywhere who had first-hand knowledge of the northern California
terrain. He had previously written that there was a likelihood that gold was to
be found all along the route between the Umpqua River in Oregon and the
Sacramento Valley. He was probably deluged with inquiries about the Shasta
region, and was forced to publish in more detail some advice to the would-be
gold miners.
He was elected as a member to the American Philosophical
Society in 1854.
Dana was responsible for developing much of the early knowledge on Hawaiian volcanism. In 1880 and 1881 he led the first geological study of the volcanics of Hawaii island. Dana theorized that the volcanic chain consisted of two volcanic strands, dubbed the "Loa" and "Kea" trends. The Kea trend included Kīlauea, Mauna Kea, Kohala, Haleakala, and West Maui. The Loa trend includes Lōʻihi, Mauna Loa, Hualālai, Kahoʻolawe, Lānaʻi, and West Molokaʻi.
Following another expedition by fellow geologist C. E.
Dutton in 1884, Dana returned to the island once again and in 1890 he published
a manuscript on the island that was the most detailed of its day, and would be
the definitive source upon the island's volcanics for decades.
Dana's best known books included this System of Mineralogy
(1837). Dana's System of Mineralogy has
also been revised, the 6th edition (1892) being edited by his son Edward Salisbury
Dana. A 7th edition was published in 1944, and the 8th edition was published in
1997 under the title Dana's New Mineralogy, edited by R. V. Gaines et al. Between
1856 and 1857, Dana published a number of manuscripts in an effort to reconcile
scientific findings with the Bible. Among these, he wrote Science and the
Bible: A Review of "The Six Days of Creation" of Prof. Tayler Lewis
(1856), and Creation, Or, The Biblical Cosmogony in the Light of Modern Science
(1885).