Part 2 (1/2)
The publication of ”The Zoology of the Voyage of _The Beagle_,”
coave a fuller view of the acquisitions to natural history which had beenon the representations of the presidents of the Linnean, Zoological, and Geological Societies, as well as of the naturalist hirant of 1000 towards the expenses of publication of these memoirs Owen's description of the fossilmammalia, in 1839; Gould's of the birds, in 1841; L Jenyns's of the fish, in 1842; and Thomas Bell's of the reptiles, in 1843--all in quarto, with beautiful plates, were a solid testimony to a splendid success Darwin furnished an introduction to each part, and the portions of the text referring to the habits and ranges of the living aniatherium were the only extinct e
To these were now added the _Mylodon Darwinii_, a giant sloth; the scelidotheriureat cae as a hippopotae reseical deposits not far anterior to the present age The collections of living vertebrates were less profoundly interesting, but the nue; and the habits and localities being recorded by so good an observer, gave theiven by the generous traveller to the London College of Surgeons, the ical Society, the reptiles to the British Museue Philosophical Society Nor was this all The collections of insects, shells, and crustacea were described by many able specialists in scientific publications The flowering plants were described by Hooker, and the non-flowering by Berkeley; and, altogether, no expedition ever yielded a more solid result to the scientific naturalist, while furnishi+ng a delightful narrative to the general reader, and laying the foundation for generalisations of surpassing i reatest value would attach to the full record of the geological observations ical Society A year after the publication of the Journal the first portion of these observations, dealing with coral reefs, was almost ready, but the continued ill-health of the author delayed the publication till 1842 When it appeared, under the title of ”The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs,” its success was immediate and coers, e and beautiful pheno built up by the tireless labours of innumerable so-called ”insects,” or ”worms,” had become associated with romantic ideas It really consists of the internal skeletons of coral-polyps, allied to the sea ane with the eyes of one ignorant of zoology, had credited the building of coral reefs to all kinds of creatures which lived on and near the coral after it had been made; and his erroneous views had been aomery, in his ”Pelican Island,”
into the most fantastically incorrect description that ever versifier penned Sad to relate, his lines were often quoted, as if correct, by scientific ives clearer evidence of the power ofround the world than the originality of his views on coral reefs The lagoon islands, or atolls, he describes as ”vast rings of coral rock, often ues in diameter, here and there sur white shores, bathed on the outside by the foa a calht, but pale, green colour” Keeling atoll, outside which, at less than a mile and a half distance, no botto been fully described, and an account given of all other known atoll systereat barrier reef of North-east Australia, and that of New Caledonia, were recounted
Off the latter, no bottoth fro With these were linked the smaller reefs of Tahiti and others, where considerable islands areor shore reefs, at first sight only a variety of barrier reefs, were clearly distinguished from them by the absence of an interior deep-water channel, and their not growing up from an immense, but from a moderate depth of water
The remarkable fact was pointed out by Darwin that all coral islands are within a little rees of the Equator, but that, at the saer areas within the tropical seas There are none on the West Coast of South America, nor on the West Coast of Africa In this portion of his e have another significant sentence bearing on the struggle for existence In discussing the apparently capricious distribution of coral reefs, he remarks that ”the study of the terrestrial and better-known half of the worldlife is lost--nay le for each station between the different orders of nature” He describes the large fishes and the trepangs (_holothuriae_) preying upon the coral-polyps, and sho complex are the conditions which determine the formation of reefs on any shore Perhaps no part of his work is more i how rapidly coral row, and that they for the reater depth of water than fifteen fatho upon the facts observed by himself and others Darwin now proceeded to upset the received theory that atolls were based upon submarine volcanic craters, and to substitute for it the view that there has been a prolonged and gradual subsidence of the areas upon which the atolls are based, and a corresponding upward growth of the reef-building corals Thus fringing-reefs in time become barrier-reefs; and barrier-reefs, when they encircle islands, are converted into atolls, or lagoon islands, as soon as the last pinnacle of land sinks beneath the surface of the ocean The whole nificent and harmonious picture of the movements which the crust of the earth has within a late period undergone is presented to us We see vast areas rising, with volcanic h the vents or fissures hich they are traversed We see other wide spaces slowly sinking without any volcanic outbursts; and wemust have been immense in amount as well as in area, thus to have buried over the broad face of the ocean every one of thesethe place of their former existence” ”No iven to the world,” says Professor A
Geikie, ”and even if he had written nothing else, this treatise alone would have placed Darwin in the very front of investigators of nature”
After thirty-two years' interval, a second edition of ”Coral Reefs”
appeared, in a cheaper form, in 1874 It is rare indeed for a scientific treatise to attain at once anda position of such undisputed authority The eeneral theory in consequence of his own careful examination of the Pelew Islands; but Darwin easily answered hi to the cumulative evidence in favour of his own views The only really important work on the subject, after Darwin's, was that of Professor J D Dana, the eist, on ”Corals and Coral Islands,” published in 1872 Darwin, in the preface to his second edition, candidly acknowledged that he had not previously laid sufficient weight on thethe distribution of coral reefs; but this did not touch his round undisturbed, and at the sareatly Dana's book, which was the result of personal examination of more coral formations than perhaps any one man had ever studied, and which accepted Darwin's fundaoon islands or atolls and barrier-reefs have been forly original theory is propounded in the second part of ”The Geology of the _Beagle_” dealing chiefly with volcanic islands St
Jago, in the Cape de Verde Islands; Fernando Noronha, Terceira, Tahiti, Mauritius, St Paul's, Ascension, St Helena, and the Galapagos are in turnto the opportunities the explorer had possessed To so part, Darwin adapts his views on mountain elevation too closely to those enunciated by Elie de Beaule_, entitled ”Geological Observations on South America,” was not published till 1846 Even this did not exhaust the contributions to geology e, for it did not include the papers on the ”Connection of certain Volcanic Phenomena in South America”
(1838); on the ”Distribution of Erratic Boulders” (1841); on the ”Fine Dust which falls on Vessels” (1845); and on the ”Geology of the Falkland Islands” (1846) A second edition of the two latter parts of ”The Geology of the _Beagle_” was published in one volu a few years of his earlywhich he was often in ill-health, Darwin fixed his residence in 1842 at Down House, near Beckenhae of Down, three or four h to London for convenient access, yet greatly secluded and thoroughly rural The traveller's roving days were over, and his infir journeys After the cessation of his active work for the Geological Society, Darwin's chief public appearance hen he spoke at the Oxford e to say, Ruskin was secretary of the Geological Section
At Down then, situated some 400 feet above the sea level on a plateau of chalk, interrupted by wavy holloith beech woods on the slopes, about forty years of Darwin's life were passed Down House, one of the square red brick mansions of the last century, to which have been since added a gable-fronted wing on one side and aand pillared portico on the other, is shut in and alh wall and belt of trees On the south side a walled garden opens into a quiet htful view of the narrow valley beyond, towards Westerham
One of the most admirable chapters of the well-known ”Manual of Scientific Enquiry,” published in 1849, for the use of the navy and travellers generally, and edited by Sir John Herschel, was Darwin's, on Geology The explorer is here taught to make the most of his opportunities upon the soundest principles The habits which the author had himself for, accurate recording,is omitted Number-labels which can be read upside down ht way up; every specirams of all kinds should be made, as nearly as possible, to scale ”Acquire the habit of always seeking an explanation of every geological point met with” ”No one can expect to solve the many difficulties which will be encountered, and which for a long tiht will occasionally be his reward, and the reward is ample_” Truly an ample reward awaited the observer who could thus speak of the value of ”a ray of light;” he certainly did, to use the concluding words of the essay, ”enjoy the high satisfaction of contributing to the perfection of the history of this wonderful world”
Meanwhile Darwin had been carrying on a great research on the very peculiar order of crustacea, termed Cirripedia, better known as barnacles and acorn shells He had originally only intended to describe a single abnorroup, from South America, but was led, for the sake of comparison, to examine the internal parts of as many as possible The British Museum collection was freely opened to hi the anatomy of many specimens became evident, the splendid collections of Messrs Stutchbury, cu, and others were placed at his disposal, and he was perreat value In fact, ale of the subject freely aided him, and the result was a masterly series of finely illustrated volu Cirripedia, issued by the Ray Society in 1851 and 1854; and two on the fossil Cirripedia of Great Britain, by the Palaeontographical Society, published in the same years There is evidence in these volurowth of these creatures had been os Islands in 1835 In many respects these works are asthe previous obscurity of the subject, the difficulties attending the research, the aleneral e of tissues, and especially of those of embryos, Darwin's success is marvellous The details are too technical for state, who studies the strange complication of the reproductive systeo, as told in these volumes, will appreciate more than ever the breadth and the solidity of the basis of patiently acquired knowledge which Charles Darwin had accu shape
At the anniversaryof the Royal Society in November, 1853, a royal medal was presented to the author of ”Coral Reefs” and the ”Memoir on the Cirripedia,” the president, the Earl of Rosse, eulogizing the foreology, and the latter as containing new facts and conclusions of first-rate interest Finally, this chapter of Darwin's life may be closed with the tardy award of the Wollaston ical Society, in February, 1859, when Professor John Phillips spoke of hi the rarest acquirements as a naturalist, with the qualifications of a first-class geologist, and as having by his adraph on the fossil Cirripedia added hest rank
Yet even such a reputation could not secure fair treat book, the subject of which ifts of the very kind Darwin possessed
FOOTNOTES:
[5: Mr John Murray's views, derived froer_, and published in 1880, tend to modify Darwin's conclusions to some extent Mr Murray says that it is non that many submarinebuilt upon by various for animals, could be raised to such a level that ordinary corals could build upon them He concludes that probably all atolls are seated on submarine volcanoes, and thus it is not necessary to suppose such extensive and long-continued subsidences as Darwin suggested This view is also in harreat antiquity and perin of Reefs and Islands” By John Murray; Proc Roy Soc, Edin, x 505-18 (abstract); also _Nature_, xxii 351-5]
CHAPTER IV
If no other record of Darwin's twenty-two years (1837-59) of life and thought after his return to England re that period, we should find enough to place hiists of his age But all that tihts, researches, and experie perceived no fruits Few persons suspected that a treht was in preparation at the quiet country ho described by naturalists at an alare of specific characters and the necessity of specialisation bade fair to er a dry and narrow pedant; and the pedants quarrelled about the characters and limits of their species
In the later years of this period son of Owen's inary archetypes, there arose a wielder of two potent words, ”y,” the sciences of forrew out of likeness and si; and that the life of plants and animals was one science, their study one discipline What Huxley had begun to proclai in secret; and much more Let us see how he states the case in the fain of Species” (1859): ”When on board HMS
_Beagle_, as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South Aical relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent
These facts seein of species--that reatest philosophers On ht perhaps beand reflecting on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it After five years' work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up soed in 1844 into a sketch of the conclusions, which then seemed to me probable: from that period to the present day I have steadily pursued the sa on these personal details, as I give the to a decision” We learn also, independently, from the ”Expression of the Emotions” (p 19), that Darwin as early as 1838 was inclined to believe in the principle of evolution, or the derivation of species from other and lower forms