Geological Study on board the "Beagle" 349 



they were packed up for despatcli to Henslow. Besides hand- 

 magnifiers and a microscope, Darwin had an equipment for blow- 

 pipe-analysis, a contact-goniometer and magnet; and these were in 

 constant use by him. His small library of reference (now included 

 in the Collection of books placed by Mr F. Darwin in the Botany 

 School at Cambridge 1 ) appears to have been admirably selected, and 

 in all probability contained (in addition to a good many works 

 relating to South America) a fair number of excellent books of 

 reference. Among those relating to mineralogy, he possessed the 

 manuals of Phillips, Alexander Brongniart, Beudant, von Kobell and 

 Jameson : also the Cristallographie of Brochant de Villers and, for 

 blowpipe work, Dr Children's translation of the book of Berzelius on 

 the subject. In addition to these, he had Henry's Experimental 

 Chemistry and Ure's Dictionary (of Chemistry). A work, he evidently 

 often employed, was P. Syme's book on Werner's Nomenclature of 

 Colours ; while, for Petrology, he used Macculloch's Geological Classi- 

 fication of Rocks. How diligently and well he employed his instru- 

 ments and books is shown by the valuable observations recorded in 

 the annotated Catalogues drawn up on board ship. 



These catalogues have on the right-hand pages numbers and 

 descriptions of the specimens, and on the opposite pages notes on 

 the specimens the result of experiments made at the time and 

 written in a very small hand. Of the subsequently made pencil notes, 

 I shall have to speak later 2 . 



It is a question of great interest to determine the period and the 

 occasion of Darwin's first awakening to the great problem of the 

 transmutation of species. He tells us himself that his grandfather's 

 Zoonomia had been read by him " but without producing any effect," 

 and that his friend Grant's rhapsodies on Lamarck and his views on 

 evolution only gave rise to " astonishment 3 ." 



Huxley, who had probably never seen the privately printed 

 volume of letters to Henslow, expressed the opinion that Darwin 

 could not have perceived the important bearing of his discovery of 

 bones in the Pampean Formation, until they had been studied in 

 England, and their analogies pronounced upon by competent com- 

 parative anatomists. And this seemed to be confirmed by Darwin's 

 own entry in his pocket-book for 1837, " In July opened first note- 



1 Catalogue of the Library of Charles Darwin now in the Botany School, Cambridge. 

 Compiled by H. W. Rutherford; with an introduction by Francis Darwin. Cambridge, 

 1908. 



2 I am greatly indebted to my friend Mr A. Barker, F.R.S., for his assistance in 

 examining these specimens and catalogues. He has also arranged the specimens in the 

 Sedgwick Museum, so as to make reference to them easy. The specimens from Ascension 

 and a few others are however in the Museum at Jermyn Street. 



3 L. L. i. p. 38. 



