Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/663

 DANA 659 cock a justice of the supreme court of Massa- chusetts. In 1786 he was chosen delegate to the Annapolis convention, which resulted in the call of the convention which framed the constitution of the United States ; and to this latter body he was also appointed a delegate, but his judicial duties and his health, still suf- fering from his residence at St. Petersburg, prevented his attendance. In the Massachu- setts convention for the adoption of the con- stitution (1788), he took a leading part in its favor. On Nov. 29, 1791, he was appointed chief justice of Massachusetts, and during his 15 years' tenure of that office kept aloof from political life, except that he was a presidential elector in 1792 and in 1800, as well as in 1808. He was appointed by Mr. Adams, June 5, 1797, with Cotesworth Pinckney and John Marshall, special envoy to the French repub- lic ; but precarious health compelled him to decline that office. After retiring from the bench in 1806, Chief Justice Dana took no official part in public affairs. As a judge he was well read and apprehensive of principles, and of an exemplary austerity toward all man- ner of chicane and indirection; a discerning and assiduous diplomatist, and an influential man in elective and popular assemblies, where his eloquence exhibited a rare union of impas- sioned feeling with natural dignity. He was one of the founders of the American academy of arts and sciences, and his retirement was en- livened by his interest in enterprises for the benefit of the neighborhood of Boston, and by literary and other cultivated tastes. His house at Cambridge was much visited by his old fel- low leaders of the federal party, and by young- er men from the university, the Channings, Allston, Buckminster, and others, afterward variously distinguished. He married in early life a daughter of William Ellery of Rhode Island, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and was the father of Rich- ard H. Dana and several other children. DANA, James Dwlght, LL. D., an American ge- ologist and mineralogist, born at Utica, N. Y., Feb. 12, 1813. He graduated at Yale college in 1833, where he evinced an especial love for the natural sciences and mathematics. He soon after received the appointment of teacher of mathematics to midshipmen in the United States navy, and sailed to the Mediterranean, returning in 1835. During the two years fol- lowing he acted at Yale college as assistant to Prof. Silliman, whose successor he ultimately became. In 1837 he published " A System of Mineralogy," a work of high repute in Europe and America (5th ed., revised and enlarged, 1870). In December, 1836, he was appointed mineralogist and geologist of the United States exploring expedition, then about to be sent to the Southern and Pacific oceans. The squad- ron, under command of Lieut. Wilkes, sailed in August, 1838, and returned in 1842. Du- ring the 13 years following, Mr. Dana was en- gaged in preparing for publication the various reports of this expedition committed to his charge, and in other scientific pursuits. The results of his labors were given in his " Re- port on Zoophytes " (4to, with an atlas of 61 folio plates, 1846), in which he proposes a new classification, and describes 230 new species; the "Report on the Geology of the Pacific" (with an atlas of 21 plates, 1849) ; and the " Re- port on Crustacea" (4to, 1,620 pages, with an atlas of 96 folio plates, 1852-'4). In this last named work 680 species are described, of which 658 were new. These reports were pub- lished by the government. With few excep- tions, the drawings in the atlases were made by Mr. Dana himself. A series of four articles by him entitled "Science and the Bible," called forth by a work of Prof. Tayler Lewis on the " Six Days of Creation," appeared in tffe "Bibliotheca Sacra" in 1856-'7. Soon after Prof. Silliman's resignation of the chair of chemistry and geology in Yale college, Mr. Dana entered in 1855 on the duties of the office of Silliman professor of natural history and geology, to which place he had been elected in 1850, and which he still retains. In 1854 he was elected president of the American as- sociation for the advancement of science, hav- ing been for many years one of the standing committee of that body, and in August, 1855, he delivered the annual address before that as- sociation at its meeting in Providence. He has also published a " Manual of Geology " (1863), a "Text Book of Geology for Schools and Academies " (1864), and " Corals and Coral Islands " (1872). For many years he has been associated with his brother-in-law Prof. Ben- jamin Silliman, jr., as editor and publisher of the " American Journal of Science and Arts," founded in 1818 by the elder Silliman. To this journal, as well as to the proceedings of the American academy of arts and sciences in Boston, the lyceum of natural history of New York, and the academy of natural sciences of Philadelphia, Prof. Dana has contributed vari- ous important scientific memoirs. He has been elected a member of many learned societies in Europe, including the royal academies of sci- ences in Berlin and Munich, the geological and Linnsean societies in London, the philomathic society in Paris, and others. In 1872 the Wol- laston gold medal, in charge of the geological society of London, was conferred upon him. DANA, Richard, an American jurist, born in Cambridge, Mass., July 7, 1699, died May 17, 1772. He was grandson of Richard Dana, progenitor of the family in America, who settled at Cambridge in 164p. He graduated at Harvard college in 1718, and after practis- ing law for a time at Marblehead and Charles- town, he removed to Boston, where he became a leading barrister. He was very prominent in the measures of resistance to the arbitrary acts of the British government, which immediately preceded the revolution. Although devoted to his profession and declining office, he took- a leading part in those important political as-