He studied a number of mountainous formations in Great Britain and Continental Europe and arrived at important conclusions about cleavage in rocks.
His mother's family owned a bank in the City of London, and his uncle was Samuel Rogers, the poet and literary figure, so Daniel was not abandoned.
At the age of 16 he entered the counting house of a Portuguese merchant in London.
At the age of 25, after spending a year in Portugal, he joined his elder brother as a partner in a Portuguese mercantile business.
He studied the Silurian rocks of the Lake District and North Wales (1842–1844), and afterwards investigated the structure of the Alps (1854–1855).