Volume I Part 24 (1/2)
Visits to London of this kind were kept up for some years at the cost of much exertion on his part I have often heard him speak of the wearisome drives of ten miles to or froardener acting as coachreat caution and slowness up and down the ular scientific intercourse with London became, as before mentioned, an impossibility
The choice of Doas rather the result of despair than of actual preference; , and the attractive points about the place thus seemed to them to counterbalance its somewhat more obvious faults It had at least one desideratum, namely quietness Indeed it would have been difficult to find a more retired place so near to London In 1842 a coach drive of some twenty miles was the only means of access to Down; and even now that railways have crept closer to it, it is singularly out of the world, with nothing to suggest the neighbourhood of London, unless it be the dull haze of se stands in an angle between two of the larger high-roads of the country, one leading to Tunbridge and the other to Westerhae It is cut off from the Weald by a line of steep chalk hills on the south, and an abrupt hill, now s and eainst encroache, co with the main lines of traffic, only by stony tortuous lanes, may well have been enabled to preserve its retired character Nor is it hard to believe in the s their way up froes of the Weald, of which the mee stands on solitary upland country, 500 to 600 feet above the sea,-- a country with little natural beauty, but possessing a certain char the chalky banks and looking down upon the quiet ploughed lands of the valleys The village, of three or four hundred inhabitants, consists of three s in front of the little flint-built church It is a place where new-co far back in the old church registers are still well-known in the village The sh chiefly used as a ceremonial dress by the ”bearers” at funerals: but as a boy I rereen smocks of the men at church
The house stands a quarter of a e, and is built, like so many houses of the last century, as near as possible to the road--a narrow lane winding away to the Westerhah: a square brick building of three storeys, covered with shabby ash and hanging tiles The garden had none of the shrubberies or walls that now give shelter; it was overlooked from the lane, and was open, bleak, and desolate One of s was to lower the lane by about two feet, and to build a flint wall along that part of it which bordered the garden
The earth thus excavated was used inbanks and reens, which now give to the garden its retired and sheltered character
The house wascovered with stucco, but the chief i up through three storeys This bow becale of creepers, and pleasantly varied the south side of the house The drawing-rooarden, as well as the study in whichthe later years of his life, were added at subsequent dates
Eighteen acres of land were sold with the house, of which twelve acres on the south side of the house formed a pleasant field, scattered with fair-sized oaks and ashes From this field a strip was cut off and converted into a kitchen garden, in which the experireenhouses were ulti letter to Mr Fox (March 28th, 1843) gives as my father's early i particulars about ly busy with the first brick laid down yesterday to an addition to our house; with this, with alarden and sundry other projected scheeology, but I a with a volume, or rather pae only a couple of hours per day and that not very regularly It is uphill riting books, which cost ists I forget whether I ever described this place: it is a good, very ugly house with 18 acres, situated on a chalk flat, 560 feet above sea There are peeps of far distant country and the scenery is moderately pretty: its chief merit is its extreme rurality I think I was never in a reat chalk escarpment quite cuts us off from the low country of Kent, and between us and the escarpreat woods and arable fields (the latter in sadly preponderant nue of the world The whole country is intersected by foot-paths; but the surface over the chalk is clayey and sticky, which is the worst feature in our purchase The dingles and banks often reeshi+re and walks with you to Cherry Hinton, and other places, though the general aspect of the country is very different I was looking over ed cabinet (the only relish insects), and was adaeus Crux-major: it is curious the vivid manner in which this insect calls up inafter, when I was first introduced to you Those entoer corporeally, but aue, or rather excitement, so that I cannot dine out or receive visitors, except relations hom I can pass some tiive here some idea of the position which, at this period of his life,public generally But contemporary notices are few and of no particular value for ood deal of pains, remain unfulfilled
His 'Journal of Researches' was then the only one of his books which had any chance of being commonly known But the fact that it was published with the 'Voyages' of Captains King and Fitz-Roy probably interfered with its general popularity Thus Lyell wrote to hie 43), ”I assure you rees with e sale if published separately He was disappointed at hearing that it was to be fettered by the other voluh he should equally buy it, he feared soso” In a notice of the three voyages in the 'Edinburgh Review' (July, 1839), there is nothing leading a reader to believe that he would find it more attractive than its fellow-volumes And, as a fact, it did not become widely known until it was separately published in 1845 It may be noted, however, that the 'Quarterly Review' (December, 1839) called the attention of its readers to the merits of the 'Journal' as a book of travels The reviewer speaks of the ”char froes of a strong intellectual man and an acute and deep observer”
The German translation (1844) of the 'Journal' received a favourable notice in No 12 of the 'Heidelberger Jahrbucher der Literatur,'
1847--where the Reviewer speaks of the author's ”varied canvas, on which he sketches in lively colours the strange custoions with their re to the translation, my father writes--”Dr
Dieffenbachhas translated my 'Journal' into German, and I must, with unpardonable vanity, boast that it was at the instigation of Liebig and Huical work of which he speaks in the above letter to Mr Fox occupied hi of the following year It was entitled 'Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands, visited during the voyage of HMS ”Beagle”, together with soy of Australia and the Cape of Good Hope': it forle”,' published ”with the Approval of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury” The volume on 'Coral Reefs' forms Part I of the series, and was published, as we have seen, in 1842 For the sake of the non-geological reader, I may here quote Professor Geikie's words (Charles Darwin, 'Nature' Series, 1882) on these two voluical works Speaking of the 'Coral Reefs,' he says:--page 17, ”This well-known treatise, the ical ical literature The origin of those reiven rise to much speculation, but no satisfactory solution of the proble e islands and continents, he offered a theory which for sirandeur strikes every reader with astonishment It is pleasant, after the lapse of ht hich one first read the 'Coral Reefs'; how one watched the facts being nored or passed lightly over; and how, step by step, one was led to the grand conclusion of wide oceanic subsidence No iven to the world, and even if he had written nothing else, the treatise alone would have placed Darwin in the very front of investigators of nature”
It is interesting to see in the following extract from one of Lyell's letters (To Sir John Herschel, May 24, 1837 'Life of Sir Charles Lyell,' vol ii page 12) hoarives incidentally some idea of the theory itself
”I am very full of Darwin's new theory of Coral Islands, and have urged Whewell to ive upat first, for it accounted for soof an isolated mountain in a deep sea; all went so ith the notion of subed, crateriform, and conical volcanoes, and then the fact that in the South Pacific we had scarcely any rocks in the regions of coral islands, save two kinds, coral limestone and volcanic!
Yet spite of all this, the whole theory is knocked on the head, and the annular shape and central lagoon have nothing to do with volcanoes, nor even with a crateriform bottom Perhaps Darwin told you when at the Cape what he considers the true cause? Let any row in the sea in which it is sinking, and there will be a ring of coral, and finally only a lagoon in the centre Why?
For the sa certain coasts: Australia, etc Coral islands are the last efforts of drowning continents to lift their heads above water Regions of elevation and subsidence in the ocean may be traced by the state of the coral reefs”
There is little to be said as to published contemporary criticism
The book was not reviewed in the 'Quarterly Review' till 1847, when a favourable notice was given The reviewer speaks of the ”bold and startling” character of the work, but seeenerally accepted by geologists By that tiy of this type Even ten years before, in 1837, Lyell ('Life of Sir Charles Lyell,' vol ii
page 6) says, ”people are now much better prepared to believe Darhen he advances proofs of the slow rise of the Andes, than they were in 1830, when I first startled them with that doctrine” This sentence refers to the theory elaborated in ical observations on South Aeological ical work
Nevertheless, Lyell seems at first not to have expected any ready acceptance of the Coral theory; thus he wrote tofor days after your lesson on coral reefs, but of the tops of subed continents It is all true, but do not flatter yourself that you will be believed till you are growing bald like me, with hard work and vexation at the incredulity of the world”
The second part of the 'Geology of the Voyage of the ”Beagle”,' ie the volume on Volcanic Islands, which specially concerns us now, cannot be better described than by again quoting froe 18):--
”Full of detailed observations, this work still reical structure of ions it describes At the time it ritten the 'crater of elevation theory,'
though opposed by Constant Prevost, Scrope, and Lyell, was generally accepted, at least on 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 arded as having contributed towards the final solution of the difficulty” Professor Geikie continues (page 21): ”He is one of the earliest writers to recognize the ical accumulations have been subjected One of the most impressive lessons to be learnt froious extent to which they have been denudedHe was disposed to attribute ists would now adinal 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 esti that you intend looking through hteen months!!! and I have heard of very feho have read it Now I shall feel, whatever little (and little it is) there is confirmatory of old work, or neork its effect and not be lost”
The third of his geological books, 'Geological Observations on South Ah it was not published until 1846 ”In this work the author embodied all the materials collected by hiy, save some which have been published elsewhere One of the most iht forward to prove the slow interrupted elevation of the South Aical period” (Geikie, loc cit)
Of this book es, dreadfully dull, yet h it, you will think the collection of facts on the elevation of the land and on the forical work as a whole, Professor Geikie, while pointing out that it was not ”of the saical researches,” reeneral reception of Lyell's teaching ”by the way in which he gathered from all parts of the world facts in its support”