James Dwight Dana (1813–1895): Mineralogist, Zoologist, Geologist, Explorer James H
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RROCKOCK STARS STARS James Dwight Dana (1813–1895): Mineralogist, Zoologist, Geologist, Explorer James H. Natland, Rosenstiel School of of Mineralogy, published when Dana was Marine and Atmospheric Science, just 24, ran to four editions in his lifetime. University of Miami, Miami, FL 33149, USA Dana took up geology mainly when he became geologist and mineralogist of the To many of his contemporaries, James U.S. Exploring Expedition (1838–1842). Dwight Dana was the foremost American This expedition was charged with charting islands in the Pacific—potential way sta- geologist of the nineteenth century. His James Dwight Dana at the time when he was Manual of Geology, in its fourth edition tions for American clipper ships and most actively engaged in coral reef research when he died in 1895, was on the shelf of whalers—and venturing to Antarctica. (from W.M. Davis, 1928, The Coral Reef almost every American geologist, and he Besides Dana, the civilian “scientifics” in- Problem: American Geographical Society used it to teach two generations of stu- cluded specialists in botany, vertebrate zo- Special Publication 9, Fig. 1). dents while a professor in the Sheffield ology, conchology, and philology, plus Scientific School at Yale. Dana was cele- two artists. Dana, however, felt deficient in work in Fiji. Later, another vessel had to brated for his System of Mineralogy (1837), geology and looked on the expedition as be abandoned, along with many of Dana’s for his report on the geology of the U.S. an opportunity to learn it and other samples, after running aground at the Exploring Expedition (1849), for mono- branches of natural history. The expedi- mouth of the Columbia River. On Dana’s graphs on crustaceans and corals, and for tion took Dana to the Andes, to the atolls return, his adventurous tales charmed the a seminal text on volcanology he wrote and reefed volcanic islands of the Pacific, 19-year-old Henrietta Silliman, and within in his 70s. and to the active volcano of Kilauea in a month they were engaged. Dana came from a religious family. His Hawaii. Dana’s Pacific synthesis is presented in father owned a hardware store in Utica, Dana was only 25 when the expedition several chapters of his expedition report New York, and Dana, the eldest of four sailed in August 1838, under Acting on geology, which Dana drew on for the children, became adept with tools. He Captain Charles Wilkes. For American sci- rest of his career. The expedition’s scale was musical—piano and guitar—and artis- ence, the expedition was without prece- prompted him to think globally. Each tic. His mother ran the household, and her dent—the first blue-water oceanographic facet of Pacific geology—atolls, the radi- emphasis on religiosity had a lifelong in- expedition funded by the U.S. Navy. With ally dissected volcano of Tahiti, the islands fluence on Dana. He liked to “tramp” and six ships, it was far larger than earlier of Samoa that are studded with small vol- began collecting rocks, plants, and insects European ventures to the Pacific. It was canic cones, the grand natural theater of at an early age. He entered the sciences also the first American exploration on land the cauldron at Kilauea—is given a chap- when opportunities for both travel and or sea to make systematic geological ob- ter, and the whole is concluded almost communication grew in response to the servations. Only Darwin, whose career from the perspective of one looking at a industrial revolution, and in his case, with Dana’s paralleled in many ways, had done globe in a study. The islands occur in con- the size, wealth, and influence of his own geological work on volcanic islands and centric chains, each active only at one nation. reefs (on the Beagle a few years earlier). end. Toward the other end, the deeply Dana trained in several disciplines at On sailing, Dana had Darwin’s Journal of eroded volcanoes eventually disappear Yale under his future father-in-law, Researches, now usually called Voyage of beneath the waves. Only tiny coral resists, Benjamin Silliman, founder and editor of the Beagle, but it provided only glimpses and sustains a reef, first at the shore of the the American Journal of Science. After of geology in South America and else- volcano, then farther away, and finally Yale, Dana served as an instructor on a where. The Pacific was still virtually terra bounding only the waters of an atoll la- U.S. Navy vessel that sailed to the incognita and a magnificent opportunity goon. Darwin, of course, said this first, as Mediterranean, where he saw Vesuvius in for a young scientist. Dana always acknowledged, but Dana ac- eruption and pursued entomological stud- The trip was not always convivial. In tually had the idea independently, and in ies. His account of the eruption in a letter, one letter, Dana described it as “Naval Sydney, Australia, he was nonplussed to published by Silliman in the Journal, was servitude,” and the imperious Wilkes read a newspaper account of Darwin’s Dana’s first scientific paper. In 1834, Dana eventually sent one scientist home after a first publication on the evolution of reefs. returned to Yale, where he developed a disagreement and ordered Dana to as- Dana, however, added key facts, estab- new mineral classification based on chem- sume his responsibilities. The expedition lishing that embayments of the volcanic istry and crystallography and using was also hazardous. Dana’s ship was stumps within the lagoons are drowned, Silliman’s cabinet of minerals and his own nearly lost in a storm in the Straits of deeply subsided remnants of river valleys childhood collection. The resulting System Magellan. Unfriendly natives daunted the that could not have been carved by 20 FEBRUARY 2003, GSA TODAY waves. Also, the corals finally die, and the continental crust, formation of geosyn- this, from a very nineteenth century atolls slip beneath the waves. Later, in his clines at the disrupted continental mar- phrenological perspective, in the growth volume on corals, Dana predicted the ex- gins, and a role in the complicated and shape of the skulls of vertebrates. istence of deeply submerged, drowned Taconic controversy. He wrote thousands Thus a benevolent creator, whom Dana atolls, today’s guyots, in the far western of pages, preparing many of the illustra- termed the “Power Above Nature,” pre- Pacific. In 1849, Dana also contrasted the tions himself. He suffered vicissitudes of pared Earth for the benefit of His children, linear chains with the arcuate ones bound- health, including a physical breakdown in who are at the present end point of his- ing the Pacific basin, which generally oc- his late 40s. Nevertheless, he recovered tory. Such sentiments pervade Dana’s writ- cur in regions of uplift, and are active all and actively pursued his science, returning ing, as one might expect from a man who along their lengths. (in more comfort) to Hawaii in his 70s to led Bible studies, played the piano for his Dana was adept at grand geological prepare for his volume on volcanoes, re- church choir, and prayed with his family synthesis. His four most important con- vising his texts, answering a huge corre- over meals. cepts were: (1) understanding the patterns spondence, and writing papers until a few One’s system of beliefs often contributes of age progression and subsidence of lin- days before he died. to scientific hypothesis. Dana had outlooks ear volcanic chains in the Pacific based on Even with the hindsight of plate tecton- that are difficult to reconstruct and experi- extents of erosion and relationship to off- ics, Dana’s concepts are surprisingly mod- ences that are impossible to re-create. shore reefs; (2) the geological distinction ern. He contributed the core observations Dana’s work is remarkable because he between continents and ocean basins, and that form the basis of the Wilson-Morgan was able to make so much out of what we the doctrine that both are permanent fea- hypothesis of the passage of plates over today would consider so little. His mind tures of the globe; (3) the place of geosyn- hot spots, producing linear island chains arched broadly and with great discipline clines (a term he coined) in orogeny; and in their wake. Only after his death did over many topics. Within his final, chosen (4) the concentric accretion of mountain geophysics firmly dispose of the idea of field of geology, his influence was perva- belts about the ancient interior of the contracting Earth. After that, no other tec- sive and extends even to us today. North American continent. All of these are tonic hypothesis held as much sway until Acknowledgments foreshadowed in his report Geology. the advent of plate tectonics. Plate tecton- This summary is drawn mainly from To Dana, the principal physiographic ics confirmed the contrast in age and Gilman (1899), Prendergast (1978), Viola features of the Pacific basin are geologi- structure between continents and ocean and Margulis (1985), and Dana’s Geology cally young, although they rest on ancient basins, and their permanent, albeit shift- (1849) of the Exploring Expedition. I rock, and there are two dynamic domains. ing, configuration. It finally involved the thank Michele Aldrich, R.H. Dott, Gerard One is in the middle of the basin—the lin- distinctive character of the ocean basins in Middleton, and R.N. Ginsburg for ear, volcanically active ridges; the other is a truly global synthesis. thoughtful comments on the manuscript. at the edges of the continents—the arc Dana held no strictly uniformitarian volcanoes and active mountain belts. The view of Earth history.