the Continent. Darwin, however, could not receive it as a valid explanation of the facts; and though he did not share the view of its chief opponents, but ventured to propose a hypothesis of his own, the observations impartially made and described by him in this volume must be regarded as having contributed towards the final solution of the difficulty." Geikie continues (p. 21): "He is one of the earliest writers to recognize the magnitude of the denudation to which even recent geological accumulations have been subjected. One of the most impressive lessons to be learnt from his account of 'Volcanic Islands' is the prodigious extent to which they have been denuded. . . . He was disposed to attribute more of this work to the sea than most geologists would now admit; but he lived himself to modify his original views, and on this subject his latest utterances are quite abreast of the time." An extract from a letter of my father's to Lyell shows his estimate of his own work. "You have pleased me much by saying that you intend looking through my Volcanic Islands: it cost me eighteen months!!! and I have heard of very few who have read it.* Now I shall feel, whatever little (and little it is) there is confirmatory of old work, or new, will work its effect and not be lost." The second edition of the Journal of Researches † was completed in 1845. It was published by Mr. Murray in the Colonial and Home Library, and in this more accessible form soon had a large sale. C. D. to Lyell. Down [July, 1845]. MY DEAR LYELL-I send you the first part of the new edition, which I so entirely owe to you. You will see that I have ventured to dedicate it to you, and I trust that this cannot be disagreeable. I have long wished, not so much for your sake, as for my own feelings of honesty, to acknowledge He wrote to Herbert:-"I have long discovered that geologists never read each other's works, and that the only object in writing a book is a proof of earnestness, and that you do not form your opinions without undergoing labour of some kind. Geology is at present very oral, and what I here say is to a great extent quite true." And to Fitz-Roy, on the same subject, he wrote: "I have sent my South American Geology to Dover Street, and you will get it, no doubt, in the course of time. You do not know what you threaten when you propose to read it-it is purely geological. I said to my brother, You will of course read it,' and his answer was,Upon my life, I would sooner even buy it.'" †The first edition was published in 1839, as vol. iii. of the Voyages of the Adventure' and' Beagle.' No doubt proof-sheets. more plainly than by mere reference, how much I geologically owe you. Those authors, however, who, like you, educate people's minds as well as teach them special facts, can never, I should think, have full justice done them except by posterity, for the mind thus insensibly improved can hardly perceive its own upward ascent. I had intended putting in the present acknowledgment in the third part of my Geology, but its sale is so exceedingly small that I should not have had the satisfaction of thinking that as far as lay in my power I had owned, though imperfectly, my debt. Pray do not think that I am so silly, as to suppose that my dedication can any ways gratify you, except so far as I trust you will receive it, as a most sincere mark of my gratitude and friendship. I think I have improved this edition, especially the second part, which I have just finished. I have added a good deal about the Fuegians, and cut down into half the mercilessly long discussion on climate and glaciers, &c. I do not recollect anything added to the first part, long enough to call your attention to; there is a page of description of a very curious breed of oxen in Banda Oriental. I should like you to read the few last pages; there is a little discussion on extinction, which will not perhaps strike you as new, though it has so struck me, and has placed in my mind all the difficulties with respect to the causes of extinction, in the same class with other difficulties which are generally quite overlooked and undervalued by naturalists; I ought, however, to have made my discussion longer and shown by facts, as I easily could, how steadily every species must be checked in its numbers. A pleasant notice of the Journal occurs in a letter from Humboldt to Mrs. Austin, dated June 7, 1844 * :— "Alas! you have got some one in England whom you do not read-young Darwin, who went with the expedition to the Straits of Magellan. He has succeeded far better than myself with the subject I took up. There are admirable descriptions of tropical nature in his journal, which you do not read because the author is a zoologist, which you imagine to be synonymous with bore. Mr. Darwin has another merit, a very rare one in your country-he has praised me." October 1846 to October 1854. The time between October 1846, and October 1854, was practically given up to working at the Cirripedia (Barnacles); the results were published in two volumes by the Ray Society * Three Generations of Englishwomen, by Janet Ross (1888), vol. i. p. 195. in 1851 and 1854. His volumes on the Fossil Cirripedes were published by the Palæontographical Society in 1851 and 1854. Writing to Sir J. D. Hooker in 1845, my father says: “I hope this next summer to finish my South American Geology,* then to get out a little Zoology, and hurrah for my species work...' This passage serves to show that he had at this time no intention of making an exhaustive study of the Cirripedes. Indeed it would seem that his original intention was, as I learn from Sir J. D. Hooker, merely to work out one special problem. This is quite in keeping with the following passage in the Autobiography: "When on the coast of Chile, I found a most curious form, which burrowed into the shells of Concholepas, and which differed so much from all other Cirripedes that I had to form a new sub-order for its sole reception. . . . To understand the structure of my new Cirripede I had to examine and dissect many of the common forms; and this gradually led me on to take up the whole group.' In later years he seems to have felt some doubt as to the value of these eight years of work-for instance when he wrote in his Autobiography-"My work was of considerable use to me, when I had to discuss in the Origin of Species the principles of a natural classification. Nevertheless I doubt whether the work was worth the consumption of so much time." Yet I learn from Sir J. D. Hooker that he certainly recognised at the time its value to himself as systematic training. Sir Joseph writes to me: "Your father recognised three stages in his career as a biologist: the mere collector at Cambridge; the collector and observer in the Beagle, and for some years afterwards; and the trained naturalist after, and only after the Cirripede work. That he was a thinker all along is true enough, and there is a vast deal in his writings previous to the Cirripedes that a trained naturalist could but emulate. . . He often alluded to it as a valued discipline, and added that even the hateful' work of digging out synonyms, and of describing, not only improved his methods but opened his eyes to the difficulties and merits of the works of the dullest of cataloguers. One result was that he would never allow a 6 This refers to the third and last of his geological books, Geological Observation on South America, which was published in 1846. A sentence from a letter of Dec. 11, 1860, may be quoted here-"David Forbes has been carefully working the Geology of Chile, and as I value praise for accurate observation far higher than for any other quality, forgive (if you can) the insufferable vanity of my copying the last sentence in his note: I regard your Monograph on Chile as, without exception, one of the finest specimens of Geological inquiry.' I feel inclined to strut like a turkey-cock!" depreciatory remark to pass unchallenged on the poorest class of scientific workers, provided that their work was honest, and good of its kind. I have always regarded it as one of the finest traits of his character,-this generous appreciation of the hod-men of science, and of their labours and it was monographing the Barnacles that brought it about." Mr. Huxley allows me to quote his opinion as to the value of the eight years given to the Cirripedes : "In my opinion your sagacious father never did a wiser thing than when he devoted himself to the years of patient toil which the Cirripede-book cost him. "Like the rest of us, he had no proper training in biological science, and it has always struck me as a remarkable instance of his scientific insight, that he saw the necessity of giving himself such training, and of his courage, that he did not shirk the labour of obtaining it. "The great danger which besets all men of large speculative faculty, is the temptation to deal with the accepted statements of fact in natural science, as if they were not only correct, but exhaustive; as if they might be dealt with deductively, in the same way as propositions in Euclid may be dealt with. In reality, every such statement, however true it may be, is true only relatively to the means of observation and the point of view of those who have enunciated it. So far it may be depended upon. But whether it will bear every speculative conclusion that may be logically deduced from it, is quite another question. "Your father was building a vast superstructure upon the foundations furnished by the recognised facts of geological and biological science. In Physical Geography, in Geology proper, in Geographical Distribution, and in Paleontology, he had acquired an extensive practical training during the voyage of the Beagle. He knew of his own knowledge the way in which the raw materials of these branches of science are acquired, and was therefore a most competent judge of the speculative strain they would bear. That which he needed, after his return to England, was a corresponding acquaintance with Anatomy and Development, and their relation to Taxonomy-and he acquired this by his Cirripede work." Though he became excessively weary of the work before the end of the eight years, he had much keen enjoyment in the course of it. Thus he wrote to Sir J. D. Hooker (1847?):"As you say, there is an extraordinary pleasure in pure observation; not but what I suspect the pleasure in this case is rather derived from comparisons forming in one's mind with allied structures. After having been so long employed in writing my old geological observations, it is delightful to use one's eyes and fingers again." It was, in fact, a return to the work which occupied so much of his time when at sea during his voyage. Most of his work was done with the simple dissecting microscope--and it was the need which he found for higher powers that induced him, in 1846, to buy a compound microscope. He wrote to Hooker:-" When I was drawing with L., I was so delighted with the appearance of the objects, especially with their perspective, as seen through the weak powers of a good compound microscope, that I am going to order one; indeed, I often have structures in which the not power enough.' is During part of the time covered by the present chapter, my father suffered perhaps more from ill-health than at any other period of his life. He felt severely the depressing influence of these long years of illness; thus as early as 1840 he wrote to Fox: "I am grown a dull, old, spiritless dog to what I used to be. One gets stupider as one grows older I think." It is not wonderful that he should so have written, it is rather to be wondered at that his spirit withstood so great and constant a strain. He wrote to Sir Joseph Hooker in 1845: "You are very kind in your inquiries about my health; I have nothing to say about it, being always much the same, some days better and some worse. I believe I have not had one whole day, or rather night, without my stomach having been greatly disordered, during the last three years, and most days great prostration of strength: thank you for your kindness; many of my friends, I believe, think me a hypochondriac." During the whole of the period now under consideration, he was in constant correspondence with Sir Joseph Hooker. The following characteristic letter on Sigillaria (a gigantic fossil plant found in the Coal Measures) was afterwards characterised by himself as not being "reasoning, or even speculation, but simply as mental rioting." [Down, 1847 ?] "... I am delighted to hear that Brongniart thought Sigillaria aquatic, and that Binney considers coal a sort of submarine peat. I would bet 5 to 1 that in twenty years this will be generally admitted; * and I do not care for whatever the botanical difficulties or impossibilities may be. If I could but persuade myself that Sigillaria and Co. had a good range of depth, i.e. could live from 5 to 10 fathoms under An unfulfilled prophecy. |