Botanical Researches.

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results. He substituted nature for man in the case of wild animals, and saw, in the conditions of life, the climate, the lack or even supply of food, etc., elements which would produce varieties, then species, in long eras of time. So bold a theory could but shake the scientific world to its very centre, and a Darwinian war waged for years. In the end the quiet, unassuming naturalist won the battle, one opponent after another laying down his arms, until, to-day, scientists, almost to a man, accept his grand idea as the embodiment of truth.

About the year 1839, when collecting facts relating to the preceding work, Darwin was attracted to the cross-fertilisation of flowers by insects, and for many succeeding summers he made careful observations and studies, which, in 1862, resulted in a work entitled "The Fertilisation of Orchids," the actual labour on which, he tells us, cost him ten months of close application. This is one of his most delightful books, leading the reader into what has aptly been termed the fairy-land of science, and telling a wondrous story of the devices of nature to secure perpetuation.

In 1864 Darwin sent an elaborate paper on "Climbing Plants" to the Linnæan Society, which represented the labour of four months, during which time he was often seriously ill. This was published in book form in 1875, and received a hearty recognition from the scientific world. It contained many original observations, and created active interest in botanical studies. Another work on the "Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication"

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was begun in 1860, and published eight years later. The facts collected for this covered many years, while the actual time in the preparation of the volume represented over four years. A second edition, revised and corrected, followed in 1875. While collecting material for his great work on the "Origin of Species," 1837, Darwin became convinced that man in his present form was the outcome of the evolutionary law, and as a result of his speculations on the question we have the "Descent of Man," published in 1871, to which he gave three years of his life -years of intense application, broken only by the inroads of ill-health. This production added fuel to the flame of criticism, and was the sensation of the day, resulting in an almost endless controversy, which extended from the pulpit to the workshop.

In all these works we see that Darwin had conceived the ideas years before, had been collecting data and working them out through a quarter of a century, and his next publication, the "Expressions of the Emotions of Animals," was the result of similar methods.

In 1839 his first child was born, and its expressions and emotions excited not only the intense paternal love that was dominant in his nature, but a desire to observe carefully the gradual development of the human intellect. Almost daily notes were made which will be found in the work given to the world in 1872. This, too, was an immediate success, 5,227 copies being sold on the day of publication, and the book, like all the others, is still in active demand.

One of the most charming of Darwin's works, to either layman or scientist, is his "Insectivorous

Religious Reticence.

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Plants." Early in 1860, while on one of his rare vacation trips at Hartfield, he observed the insects. which had been caught by the leaves of the little Drosera. The subject so interested and attracted him that he carried some of the plants home, hoping to learn more of them. The idea which he conceived was that possibly the insects were caught for some special purpose. For a period covering sixteen years he studied these and other plants, making a series of experiments wonderful in their detail. The plants were fed with food of various kinds and facts elicited of a most surprising nature, not the least of which was that a plant could secrete, when properly excited, a fluid containing an acid and ferment closely analogous to the digestive fluid of an animal.

In 1876"The Effect of Cross- and Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom" was published, and in 1880 “The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species." This was followed by a life of Erasmus Darwin, a translation from the German of Krause, in 1879, "The Power of Movement in Plants," and finally, in 1881, he published the work previously referred to, "The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms," that was the outcome of the paper read forty years previous before the Linnæan Society, comprising, as we have seen, experiments which entailed a wait of twenty years before the exact result desired could be determined. This was the last great work of the naturalist.

In Darwin's works there is rarely any reference to religion; this was due to several reasons, one being that he desired not to hurt the feelings of any reader

by giving publicity to views which might differ from theirs, while another was that he held a man's religious belief should not be paraded in public print.

He has been called an infidel and atheist so often that there is a wide-spread belief to this effect, but nothing could be further from the truth. Darwin was a firm believer in a First Cause. He was in theory an agnostic, in practice an orthodox Christian of the broadest type. Honourable in the smallest things in life, thoughtful of others, doing as he would be done by, sensitive for others to an extreme that was often injustice to himself, kind, lovable, ready to help the young, charitable, and possessed of extreme modesty, such was the greatest naturalist of the age, a hero of heroes, a model for all men; and when we remember that for forty years of this life there was not one day without its physical suffering, we can understand the true greatness of his nature.

In February of the year 1882 Darwin was seized with severe heart trouble, which continued, with some intermission, until the 19th of April of this year, when he passed away.

It was the desire of the family to have him rest at Down, but in response to a general request from nearly all the eminent men of the day they consented to his interment in Westminster Abbey, where he lies within a few feet of the tomb of Sir Isaac Newton. The inscription upon the stone is as follows:

CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN,
Born 12 February, 1809,

Died 19 April, 1882.

Membership in Societies-The Institute of France-Prizes-Medals -Degrees-Portraits-Gifts, etc.

T may be said that Darwin was a member of nearly every scientific society of any prominence. In 1831 he was elected a member of the London Zoological Society, first being a corresponding member, later becoming a fellow for distinguished services in the cause of science. In 1833 he was elected to the

Entomological Society, being an original member, and in 1836 he became a member and secretary of the Geological Society. In 1838 he joined the Royal Geographical Society, the following year the Royal Society, the Linnæan in 1851, and the Ethnological in 1861. Every year new honours poured in upon him in elections to societies or in the form of medals