Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/665

This page needs to be proofread.

DANA 661 pan, Ceylon, India, and Egypt, and returning through Europe. In 1861 he was appointed United States attorney for Massachusetts, and held that office till 1866, arguing every prize case that came up in the district. He also, in conjunction with Mr. Evarts, argued the prize cases for the government before the supreme court, laying down the principles that in a civil war a government can exercise belliger- ent powers against its own citizens, on its own soil or on the high seas, just as against neutral nations ; that any portion of her soil in actual firm possession and control of a rebellion is enemy territory in the technical sense of the laws of war, and the property of per- sons residing in such territory is enemy prop- erty in the technical sense of the prize law, irrespective of their personal loyalty or dis- loyalty, the property being in such case con- demned as prize, and not forfeited for viola- tion of law ; that enemy territory depends on the fact of hostile occupation for the time being, and has no reference to any so-called ordinance of secession or declaration of independence ; and that, although the president cannot initiate a war, he can, in the absence of congress, use war powers for the national defence. These principles were established in the decision of the court. (The Prize Cases, 2 Black's Rep., 635.) Mr. Dana also drew up the prize act of 1864, which repealed all prior acts on the sub- ject, and completed a prize code for the United States. He was counsel for the United States in the proceedings against Jefferson Davis for treason in 1867-'8 (Johnson's "Reports of De- cisions of Chief Justice Chase, in Circuit," vol. i.). In 1866, by request of the family of Mr. Wheaton, he published an edition of Wheaton's " Elements of International Law," covering the period between Mr. Wheaton's death in 1848 and the time of publication. His note, No. 215, on the legislative, judicial, and diplomatic history of the neutrality laws of the United States and Great Britain, was printed by the government and translated into French for the use of the arbitrators at Geneva in 1872. Others of his notes were frequently cited by the counsel on each side, and by the arbitrators in their opinions. In 1867 and in 1868 he repre- sented Cambridge in the Massachusetts legisla- ture, and was chairman of the committee on the judiciary. His speech in the legislature in 1867, in favor of the repeal of the usury laws, was printed at the request of the members, and reprinted in 1873 in New York by a body of gentlemen interested in the repeal of usury laws generally. In 1866 he received the degree of LL. D. from Harvard college ; and he was lecturer on international law in the law school of the university in 1866 and 1867. In 1868 he was a candidate for representative in congress in opposition to B. F. Butler in the Essex dis- trict, and was defeated by a large majority. He has been a member of the diocesan convention of the Episcopal church for more than 20 years. The literary production by which Mr. Dana is best known is " Two Years Before the Mast " (New York, 1837). It presents the ship and shore life of a common sailor, detailed from personal experience by a man of education. It gained at once an extraordinary popularity both in England and America, and still retains it. It was republished in an enlarged form in 1869, with an additional chapter giving an account of his second visit to the scenes described, and some subsequent history of persons and vessels that figured in the original work. He has also published " To Cuba and Back " (1859), a nar- rative of a short vacation trip. His biograph- ical sketches of his kinsmen, Prof. Edward Channing and Washington Allston, are prefixed to the posthumous volumes of their writings. His oration on the late Edward Everett (Cam- bridge, 1865) is also worthy of particular men- tion. He has occasionally contributed to the "North American Review," "The Law Re- porter," and " The American Law Review." DMA, Samuel Luther, M. D., LL. D., an Amer- ican chemist, born at Amherst, N. H., July 11, 1795, died in Lowell, Mass., March 11, 1868. He graduated at Harvard college in 1813, du- ring the war with Great Britain, and received a commission as lieutenant in the 1st United States artillery, with which he served in New York and Virginia until the close of the war. The army having been disbanded, he resigned his commission in June, 1815, and commenced the study of medicine, receiving his degree of M. D. in 1818. From 1819 to 1826 he prac- tised his profession at Waltham, Mass., estab- lished a chemical laboratory for the manufac- ture of oil of vitriol and bleaching salts, and founded the Newton chemical company, of which he was the chemist till 1834. He then became resident and consulting chemist to the Merrimack manufacturing company, the duties of which office he performed till his death. He was associated with his brother, Prof. James F. Dana, in publishing the " Mineralogy and Geology of Boston and its Vicinity " (1818). His next publication, made while he was in England in 1833, was a clear exposition of the chemical changes occurring in the manufacture of sulphuric acid. This was followed by a re- port to the city council of Lowell on the dan- ger arising from the use of lead water pipes. About this period his agricultural experiments and observations were made, and the materials obtained for "The Farmers' Muck Manual," published in 1842. "An Essay on Manures" was honored by the prize of the Massachusetts agricultural society in 1843. His translation and systematic arrangement of the treatise of Tanquerel on lead diseases was an important contribution to medical knowledge. The dis- cussion of the lead pipe question gave rise to several papers and pamphlets from his pen. His investigations shed light on the more ob- scure points of the art of printing cotton, and led to many improvements. His discoveries in connection with bleaching cotton were first published in the Bulletin de la societe indut-