From the Galapagos Archipelago the vessel steered for Tahiti. In that island Mr. Darwin saw a good deal of the missionaries, and his remarks upon their work are worth quoting, because they show with what an observant and impartial mind, far removed above the ordinary prejudices of the traveller, he regarded his fellow men.

On the whole, it appears to me that the morality and religion of the inhabitants are highly creditable. There are many who attack, even more acrimoniously than Kotzebue, the missionaries, their system, and the effects produced by it. Such reasoners never compare the present state with that of the island only twenty years ago; nor even with that of Europe at this day; but they compare it with the high standard of Gospel perfection. They expect the missionaries to effect that which the Apostles themselves failed to do. Inasmuch as the condition of the people falls short of this high standard, blame is attached to the missionary, instead of credit for that which he has effected. They forget, or will not remember, that human sacrifices, and the power of an idolatrous priesthooda system of profligacy unparalleled in any other part of the world-infanticide a consequence of that system-bloody wars, where the conquerors spared neither women nor childrenthat all these have been abolished; and that dishonesty, intemperance, and licentiousness have been greatly reduced by the introduction of Christianity. In a voyager to forget these things is base ingratitude; for should he chance to be at the point of shipwreck on some unknown coast, he will most devoutly pray that the lesson of the missionary may have extended thus far.

A curious illustration of the truth of this remark is supplied by the experience of a number of sailors amongst the natives of Tierra del Fuego, whose degraded condition had made so deep an impression on Darwin's mind. In former days, we are told by Admiral Sullivan, no shipwrecked crew ever escaped from that inhospitable shore with their lives, except by force of arms. Some time after the Mission was established, a Liverpool barque and a schooner were driven upon the coast, a few miles from the site of a stockade built by a number of sailors, years before, to defend themselves against the natives. In the present

case, the castaways were treated by the Fuegians with the greatest kindness, and guided many hundreds of miles to a spot where passing vessels might be signalled.

New Zealand and Australia were visited next, and then the Keeling Islands in the Indian Ocean, where Mr. Darwin examined the coral formation, and discovered the secret of the curious lagoon-islands, or atolls, which had excited the wonder and admiration of every traveller who saw them. He devotes several pages to a lucid description of these marvellous structures, and it was afterwards enlarged into the well-known work on the Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs. Thousands of voyagers had seen these atolls, and many had tried to explain their construction; but the secret was kept until Mr. Darwin revealed it. His explanation is as simple as it is ingenious. The oceanic islands, round which the corals build their reefs, gradually subside. As they sink, the coral-reefs are built higher and higher, until, when the original island disappears, what we may call a lake in the midst of the ocean remains, such as is represented in the accompanying sketch. We can only sum up in a few words the

conclusion that was reached, but it is supported by an array of facts and arguments which leave no room for doubt, and, as we shall see further on, it commended itself at once as true to men of science in every country. Some of the atolls are forty or fifty miles across, and Mr. Darwin says "the immensity of the

ocean, the fury of the breakers, contrasted with the lowness of the land, and the bright green water within the lagoon, can hardly be imagined without having been

seen.

Brazil was reached again, by way of the Mauritius, the Cape, and St. Helena, to complete the circuit of the globe, and then the Beagle returned home. The effect of a long voyage, says Mr. Darwin, "ought to be to teach the traveller good-humoured patience, freedom from selfishness, the habit of acting for him. self, and of making the best of every occurrence." The writer had ample opportunity of putting his philosophy to the test! He suffered much from sea-sickness; so much, indeed, that it is supposed to have affected him for the rest of his life; though, with characteristic self-forgetfulness, he makes only a passing reference to it. But he speaks of the deep enjoyment he derived; nor is this wonderful when we know the spirit in which the voyage was undertaken, and the interest in other men and other things that made his own sufferings a mere trifle in the balance.

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The Beagle brought home an abundant crop of literature. The firstfruits were given to the world in an account of the Zoology of the Voyage, and while this was appearing in parts, the volumes by Captain Fitzroy and Mr. Darwin, already mentioned, were published. The Journal of Researches was received with great favour. The Quarterly Review described it as one of the most interesting narratives of voyaging that it has fallen to our lot to take up, and one which must always occupy a distinguished space in the history of scientific navigation"; and the President of the Geological Society said that "looking at the general mass of Mr. Darwin's results he could not help considering the voyage as one of the most important events for geology which had occurred for many years."

The Zoology of the Voyage, which was published with the aid of a grant of £1000 from the national Exchequer, included an account of the Fossil Mammalia by Pro

E

fessor Owen, the Living Mammalia by Mr. Waterhouse, the Birds by Mr. Gould, the Fish by the Rev. L. Jenyns, and the Reptiles by Mr. Bell. It was through Mr. Darwin's labours in collecting specimens and making observations that all these works were produced, and he added to the description of each species an account of its habits and range. The Insects which he collected were the subject of papers by Mr. Waterhouse and others; the Plants from South America were described by Dr. Hooker, who also wrote a memoir for the Linnæan Society on the Flora of the Galapagos Archipelago; Professor Henslow published a list of Plants from the Keeling Islands, and the Cryptogamic Plants were described by Mr. Berkeley. When we add to these the works from Mr. Darwin's own hand, we can form some notion of the "capacity for taking pains" which distinguished the young naturalist.

Several short papers founded upon observations made during the voyage appeared within a few years of his return, and some of them were embodied in the larger works afterwards published. One, on the habits of the South American Ostrich, was read at a meeting of the Zoological Society in March, 1839, when Mr. Gould described the Rhea Darwinii, so called in honour of its discoverer, and spoke of Mr. Darwin's important contributions to science; two others, on the Planarian Worms of South America and on Sagitta and its Development, appeared in 1844; but most of Mr. Darwin's attention was directed at this time to geology. In May, 1837, he communicated to the Geological Society his views on Coral Reefs, which were afterwards published in the volume mentioned further on ;1 and he contributed two papers to the same society, on the Volcanic Phenomena and the Erratic Boulders of South America. In a

1 "I am very full of Darwin's new theory of Coral Islands, and have urged Whewell to make him read it at our next meeting. I must give up my volcanic crater theory for ever, though it costs me a pang at first."-Lyell to Sir John Herschell, May 24, 1837.

letter dated December, 1836, only a few weeks after the Beagle returned, Lyell, writing to tell Darwin of the great pleasure which he had derived from a paper of his, and offering to go through it with him before it was read in public, says "The idea of the Pampas going up at the rate of an inch in a century, while the western coast and the Andes rise many feet, and unequally, has long been a dream of mine. What a splendid field you have to write upon." In another letter, in March, 1838, Lyell returns to the subject, and gives an account of the meeting of the Geological Society at which Darwin read his paper on the Connection of Volcanic Phenomena and the Elevation of Mountain Chains. "He opened upon De la Bêche, Phillips, and others, his whole battery of the earthquakes and volcanoes of the Andes, and argued that spaces of a thousand miles long were simultaneously subject to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, and that the elevation of the Pampas, Patagonia, &c., all depended on a common cause." So early had Mr. Darwin, then a young man of twenty-nine, taken his place among the leading geologists of his time.

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In 1842 the first of three volumes by Mr. Darwin on the Geology of the Beagle was published under the title of the Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs; in 1844 appeared Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands visited during the Voyage of H. M. S. Beagle, together with some Brief Notices on the Geology of Australia and the Cape of Good Hope"; and in 1846 the work was completed by "Geological Observations on South America.' Each of these volumes was enough to make a considerable reputation for the writer, but the first was the most important. So close was Mr. Darwin's observation, and so cogent was his reasoning, that in four or five years the theory which he set forth was "in progress of adoption by men of science in every country. "This theory (says

i Quarterly Review, LXXXI. (1847), p. 492.