(1813–95). One of the best-informed geologists and naturalists of the 19th century, James Dwight Dana greatly influenced the development of geology into a mature science. He also made significant contributions to the subjects of mineralogy and zoology.
Dana was born on Feb. 12, 1813, in Utica, N.Y. He later studied at Yale College, in New Haven, Conn., under Benjamin Silliman, a leading chemist and mineralogist. In 1837 he published A System of Mineralogy, which remains the standard work in its field. From 1838 to 1842 Dana served as geologist on an expedition to the South Seas led by U.S. explorer Charles Wilkes. His writings on the expedition were published in three works: Zoophytes (1846), Geology (1849), and Crustacea (two volumes, 1852–54).
In 1856 Dana became professor of natural history at Yale. After a physical breakdown from exhaustion in 1859 he spent the rest of his life in seclusion, though he continued to receive academic honors and to publish. In 1862 he published his Manual of Geology, one of the major texts in the field; in 1872 he published Corals and Coral Islands. In the last years of his life, Dana concentrated on zoological studies. He was particularly interested in and finally accepted the theory of evolution proposed by Charles Darwin. Dana died in New Haven on April 14, 1895.