The works of James D. Dana, then and now: An enduring legacy for mineralogy and for libraries

Abstract

James D. Dana is a historical figure in geology and mineralogy who lived from 1813-1895. Early in his life he was a student of Asa Gray, who would later become a well-known botanist, and was also a student under Benjamin Silliman, the founder of the American Journal of Science. When Dana was in his 20’s he sailed on a U.S. Navy expedition as the official mineralogist, and later became a professor at Yale. Over his lifetime he corresponded with other major figures in the history of science including Berzelius, Lyell, Agassiz, and Darwin. He was very prolific, authoring hundreds of scientific articles, and of interest to librarians, a number of book series on mineralogy, which continued to be updated after his death. One such series is ‘The System of Mineralogy’, that contains a mineral classification scheme he devised, in which each mineral is assigned a number, as a sort of unique ID. As new minerals were discovered and known minerals were reclassified, the scheme necessarily needed to be updated. He himself wrote, and rewrote ‘The System of Mineralogy’ up to the 5th edition, his son Edward S. Dana wrote the 6th edition; and the most recent edition, the 8th is from 1997. The classification system has parallels to the more familiar CAS registry numbers for chemicals. The works of this historical figure continues to endure as valuable resources for researchers and library collections in the modern day.