DANA, JAMES DWIGHT. - B. in Utica (Nuova York) on 12 Feb. 1813, d. at N. Haven (Connecticut) on 14 Apr. 1895. Professor of geology and natural history at Yale University from 1855 to 1892 and member of the Académie des Sciences (1873).
His fundamental work is the System of mineralogy (Nuova York 1837), whose subsequent editions were edited by his son and successor Edward Salisbury (1849–1933), and which contains the classification of minerals now universally in use. Concerning creation and the Bible, he writes in his Manual of geology (Nuova York 1876, p. 770): “Between the two books of the sublime author there can be no real antinomy: both are revelations made by him to man. The first relates the wondrous divine works that go back to the remotest past and reach their climax in the appearance of man. The other teaches the relations of man with his Maker and speaks of works still more wonderful for the eternal future.”