40 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. [ch. ii. 



have done. Besides short visits to the houses of relations, 

 and occasionally to the seaside or elsewhere, we have gone 

 nowhere. During the first part of our residence we went a 

 little into society, and received a few friends here ; but 

 my health almost always suffered from the excitement, vio- 

 lent shivering and vomiting attacks being thus brought on. 

 I have therefore been compelled for many years to give up 

 all dinner-parties ; and this has been somewhat of a depri- 

 vation to me, as such parties always put me into high spirits. 

 From the same cause I have been able to invite here very 

 few scientific acquaintances. 



My chief enjoyment and sole employment throughout 

 life has been scientific work, and the excitement from such 

 work makes me for the time forget, or drives quite away, 

 my daily discomfort. I have therefore nothing to record 

 during the rest of my life, except the publication of my 

 several books. Perhaps a few details how they arose may be 

 worth giving. 



My several Publications. In the early part of 1844, my 

 observations on the volcanic islands visited during the voy- 

 age of the Beagle were published. In 1845, I took much 

 pains in correcting a new edition of my Journal of Re- 

 searches, which was originally published in 1839 as part of 

 Fitz-Roy's work. The success of this my first literary child 

 always tickles my vanity more than that of any of my other 

 books. Even to this day it sells steadily in England and 

 the United States, and has been translated for the second 

 time into German, and into French and other languages. 

 This success of a book of travels, especially of a scientific 

 one, so many years after its first publication, is surprising. 

 Ten thousand copies have been sold in England of the sec- 

 ond edition. In 1846 my Geological Observations on South 

 America were published. I record in a little diary, which 

 I have always kept, that my three geological books ( Coral 

 Reefs included) consumed four and a half years' steady 

 work ; " and now it is ten years since my return to Eng- 

 land. How much time have I lost by illness?" I have 

 nothing to say about these three books except that to my 

 surprise new editions have lately been called for.* 



In October, 1846, I began to work on ' Oirripedia' (Bar- 

 nacles). When on the coast of Chile, I found a most curi- 

 ous form, which burrowed into shells of Concholepas, and 



* Geological Observations, 2nd Edit. 1876. Coral Beefs, 2nd Edit. 1874. 



