James Douglas graduated from Queen's College, Kingston, Province of Canada in 1858 and continued his studies at the University of Edinburgh.

The elder Douglas transmitted his thirst for adventure to his son, taking him on numerous expeditions to Egypt and the Ottoman Empire in the mid-19th century.

discovered to be the corpse of Ramses I. James Douglas initially chose a different career from his father, studying to become a minister in the Presbyterian Church.

There, he presented numerous lectures to the Society's members, the first on Egyptian hieroglyphics and mummies, and later papers on mining and geological issues.

[4] In 1869, Douglas' scientific experiments with the assistance of Dr. Thomas Sterry Hunt at Université Laval led him to a discovery that was to change his life.

During the early 1870s, he traveled to copper mines in Chile and Ore Knob, North Carolina to introduce the Hunt & Douglas process.

[8] In 1874, he introduced an improvement on the Hunt-Douglas process at J. Oscar Stewart's quartz mill in Georgetown, Colorado to also recover silver.

He is praised as a proponent of the open exchange of ideas, scientific and technological innovations, especially during the secretive years of 19th century copper metallurgy.

In 1883, after the Phoenixville works burned down, he made his last permanent move, to the New York City area to be closer to the financial hub.

Douglas was given the choice of a flat fee or a ten per cent interest in the property for his services, of which he chose the latter, a decision that subsequently made him a fortune.

Importantly, he recruited talented young engineers, including his sons James and Walter, Dr. L. D. Ricketts, and Charles E. Mills, to manage the expanding business.

When the Copper Queen company built a new smelter in the flats east of Bisbee, the founders of the adjacent Mexican border town named Douglas, Arizona for him.

Again unsatisfied with freight rates offered by the big railroads, a line extension was pushed to El Paso, TX by 1904.

His son, James S. Douglas Jr., or "Rawhide Jimmy" (1867–1949), managed the Phelps Dodge works at Nacazori before heading off on his own and building a major fortune with the United Verde Extension mine in Jerome, Arizona.

Walter Douglas followed in his father's footsteps as manager of the Copper Queen, then president and finally CEO of Phelps Dodge.

He wrote several books on the subject in his lifetime, namely Canadian Independence, Old France in the New World, and New England and New France—Contrasts and Parallels in Colonial History.

In addition to bailing Queen's University out of a financial crisis with approximately a million dollars from his own pocket, Douglas also established the first chair in Canadian and Colonial History there in 1910.

[26] In 1915 Dr. Douglas, working with Dr. James Ewing, helped to establish a radium department and lay the foundation in the United States for radiation therapy.

Since 1922, the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers annually awards the James Douglas Gold Medal in his memory.