The Life of James Dwight Dana: Scientific Explorer, Mineralogist, Geologist, Zoologist, Professor in Yale University |
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Page 274 - neath a curtain of translucent dew, Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, Hesperus with the host of heaven came; And, lo! Creation widened in man's view. Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed Within thy beams, O Sun? or who could find, Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed, That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind? Why do we then shun Death with anxious strife? If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?
Page 192 - LORD, who hast taught us that all our doings without charity are nothing worth ; send thy HOLY GHOST, and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of charity, the very bond of peace, and of all virtues ; without which, whosoever liveth is counted dead before thee : Grant this for thine only Son JESUS CHRIST'S sake. Amen.
Page 222 - Throughout geological time they were the agents appointed to produce the material of limestones, and also to make even the flint and many of the siliceous deposits of the earth's formations. Coral is never, therefore, the handiwork of the manyarmed polyps ; for it is no more a result of labor than bonemaking in ourselves. And again, it is not a collection of cells into which the coral animals may withdraw for concealment any more than the skeleton of a dog is its house or cell ; for every part of...
Page 53 - To change is always seeming fickleness. But not to change with the advance of science, is worse ; it is persistence in error ; and, therefore, notwithstanding the former adoption of what has been called the Natural History System, and the pledge to its support given by the author in supplying it with a Latin nomenclature, the whole system, its classes, orders, genera, and Latin names, have been rejected ; and even the trace of it which the synonymy might perhaps rightly bear has been discarded.
Page 173 - Science — now in its thirty-seventh year and seventieth volume — projected and long sustained solely by Professor Silliman, while ever distributing truth, has also been ever gathering honors, and is one of the laurels of Yale. We rejoice that in laying aside his studies, after so many years of labor, there is still no abated vigor. Youth with him has been perpetual. Years will make some encroachments as they pass : yet Time, with some, seems to stand aloof when the inner Temple is guarded by...
Page 206 - The series of volumes must ever form a work of permanent interest on account of its exhibiting the progress of American science during the long period which it covers. Comparing 1817 with 1847, we mark on this subject a very gratifying change. The cultivators of science in the United States were then few — now they are numerous. Societies and associations of various names, for the cultivation of natural history, have been instituted in very many of our cities and towns, and several of them have...
Page 225 - Very erroneous ideas prevail, respecting the appearance of a bed or area of growing corals. The submerged reef is often thought of as an extended mass of coral, alive uniformly over its upper surface, and, by this living growth, gradually enlarging upward : and such preconceived views, when ascertained to be erroneous by observation, have sometimes led to skepticism with regard to the zoophytic origin of the reef-rock.
Page 167 - Yale was a half-bushel of unlabelled stones. On visiting England he found even in London no school public or private, for geological instruction, and the science was not named in the English universities. To the mines, quarries, and cliffs of England, the crags of Scotland, and the meadows of Holland he looked for knowledge, and from these and the teachings of Murray, Jameson, Hall, Hope, and Playfair, at Edinburgh, Professor Silliman returned, equipped for duty, — albeit a great duty, — that...
Page 311 - ... general.' But in reasoning from inorganic species to organic species, and in making it tell where you want it, and for what you want it to tell, you must be sure that you are using the word species in the same sense in the two ; that the one is really the equivalent of the other. That is what I am not yet convinced of; and so to me the argument comes only with the force of an analogy, whereas I suppose you want it to come as demonstration. Very likely you could convince me that there is no fallacy...
Page 172 - An equal interest was exhibited by the lecturer in the welfare of hki opponents, and the progress of what he believed to be the truth ¡ and with boldness and power he stood by both the Bible and the Science, until now there are few to question his faith. And while the Science and truth have thus made progress here, through these labors of fifty years, the means of study in the Institution have no less increased. Instead of that half bushel of stones, which once went to Philadelphia for...