alive and well - Geological Society of Australia

Feature 1Encounters with James Dwight DanaThe bicentenary of the birth of the American geologistJames Dwight Dana is coming up early next year —Dana was born on 12 February 1813 in Utica, New York.As we approach the year 2013, it seems fitting to celebrate theman and his achievements. This is appropriate in Australia for anumber of reasons, apart from his broad-ranging and insightfulcontributions to geology.First, Dana spent some time in Australia, albeit a mere threemonths, yet that was sufficient for him to make an impact onthe thinking surrounding a number of geological matters herein the mid-nineteenth century. Second, most geologists trainedin Australia have encountered Dana’s work as undergraduates.This encounter has been through his textbooks on mineralogyand crystallography, subjects that were an abiding passion forDana throughout his life. My own introduction to Dana was atthe very beginning of Geology 1 at University of WesternAustralia (UWA), and I have to confess that I struggled with thegeometry of crystal faces at that early stage of myundergraduate study!Dana’s System of Mineralogy, or more fully A System ofMineralogy, Including an Extended Treatise of Crystallography,was published in 1837 when he was just 24. It ran to foureditions in his lifetime, and many more after his death, with avariety of editors, including some by his son, Edward S Dana, andincluding some minor changes in title and content. My own copy(sadly now lost) was a 1957 edition of A Textbook of Mineralogy.The 23rd edition, Dana’s Manual of Mineral Science, waspublished in 2007. This contribution to mineralogy alone wouldhave ensured Dana a place in scientific history, but he was somuch more than a mineralogist!A perusal of his bibliography shows the breadth of hisinterests and learning, and of his willingness to venture into newareas, always with a considered and thorough, though sometimespatriotic, approach. Much of his output was published in theAmerican Journal of Science, in which he played a major rolethroughout his life as editor and business supporter. A quickglance at Dana’s bibliography reveals such gems as ‘On thetemperature limiting the distribution of corals’ (1844), ‘Thevolcanoes of the moon’ (1846), ‘The origin of continents’ (1847),‘Coral reefs and islands’ (1851), ‘The plan of development of thegeological history of North America’ (1856), ‘The classificationof Crustacean’ (1856) and ‘On the Appalachians and RockyMountains as time boundaries in geological history’ (1863).So the list goes on, right up to his Textbook of Geology, the4th edition of which was published just before his death in 1895.US Exploring ExpeditionIn a similar fashion to Charles Darwin, James Dana’s life workand thought were shaped by his participation, at a young age, ina major exploring expedition. The major influence on Dana’s workbegan with his participation in one of the grandest of allexploring expeditions. The United States Exploring Expedition(1838–1842, commonly known as the Ex.Ex. or the WilkesExpedition) was set up by the US Government to investigate theSouth Pacific, including venturing into the highest southernlatitudes in search of an Antarctic continent. Commerce andnationalism were pre-eminent among of the aims of thisexpedition, but the needs of science were also included. Theexpedition had a long gestation period, but naval and scientificstaff members were eventually appointed, with the imperiousand ambitious Charles Wilkes as Commander. Dana was namedMineralogist to the expedition, with the intention he shouldcover the whole field of geology. Other appointments included abotanist, naturalists and an ethnographer.On the expedition, Dana eventually covered not only hisdesignated field of expertise, but also much of the zoology, afterthe retirement of the naturalist Joseph Couthouy, who, like manyothers, didn’t get on with Wilkes. The expedition has been welldocumented — suffice it here to say that it achieved a range ofscientific and geographic discoveries, chief among them theestablishment of Antarctica as a single continent rather than aseries of unconnected islands. Unfortunately the venture is aswell remembered for its personal problems as for its geographicachievements. It was the soaring ambition of Wilkes — who hasbeen described as ‘narcissistic, domineering and insecure to thepoint of paranoia’, his treatment of his junior officers, and theloss of two of the expedition’s six vessels, which resulted in hiseventual court-martial.Dana was assigned to the sloop-of-war USS Peacock, one ofthe largest of the six vessels of the expedition, which sailed fromNorfolk, Virginia on 18 August 1838. During the voyage throughthe Atlantic and the Pacific, Dana spent much of his timecollecting, studying and illustrating Crustacea. If for nothing else,Dana could well be remembered for his work on the Crustacea,because his report on this group included the first description ofkrill — the species Euphausia superba Dana 1850 is now knownas a key species in the Antarctic ecosystem, and may in fact bethe most abundant animal species on the planet!But Dana was a geologist, and when opportunity afforded,he made excursions ashore, making geological observations andcollecting specimens. Surveys of many of the islands in thePacific provided him with opportunities to study both coral reefsand volcanic islands, subjects to which he was to return throughoutthe rest of his career.TAG September 2012| 25