256 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



dangerous Torres Strait, and Chamisso missed seeing the fifth 

 quarter. 



Chamisso's voyage was very similar in its general outline with 

 the fruitful one that Darwin made fifteen years later. Darwin 

 was also naturalist on a little war-vessel dispatched on hydro- 

 graphic work, and the course of the Beagle covered that of the 

 Rurik in many points, except that it visited Australia instead 

 of the arctic regions, and Tahiti instead of the Sandwich Islands. 

 Darwin, according to his Autobiography, does not seem to have 

 been better prepared for his journey than Chamisso. He had never 

 dissected, and could not draw like Chamisso. In one point he was 

 better situated than our traveler : Captain Fitz-Roy furthered his 

 ends, while Chamisso's captain gave him as little attention as pos- 

 sible as a naturalist, and treated him hardly better as a man. His 

 collections were generally thrown overboard, and he had to black 

 his own boots. The Rurik having only three quarters the capaci- 

 ty of the Beagle, the limitations of space were extremely adverse 

 to collecting and observing. So much the more creditable is it to 

 Chamisso that he was able under so many difficulties to conceal 

 and bring home natural treasures of every kind, as well as to 

 make copious fine and striking observations in every conceivable 

 field. He has in this way enriched, first, botany, then zoology 

 and natural history, geography of animals and plants, anthro- 

 pology and folk-lore, geology and geographical physics with facts 

 of greater or less importance. In two points his observations 

 stretched over a wider circle than Darwin's in that they extended 

 to the polar regions, and that he, paying more attention to anthro- 

 pology and ethnography than Darwin, studied the languages with 

 which he came in contact. The discomforts of Chamisso's situa- 

 tion on the Rurik were alleviated by the society of two men who 

 shared his scientific tastes. The Russian painter, Login Choris, 

 was ready with his pencil to fix any remarkable features of the 

 landscape or in natural history ; and the ship's surgeon, Dr. 

 Friedrich Eschscholtz, of Dorpat, was often an active, expert 

 participant in his efforts. 



Like Darwin, in his Journal of Researches, Chamisso, in his 

 Voyage round the World, published his experiences, pleasantly 

 interwoven with scientific observations, upon which a series of 

 " remarks and views," in the third volume of Kotzebue's narrative, 

 afford a commentary. Chamisso's narrative, rich as it is in pleas- 

 ant details, lacks something that lends a high charm to Darwin's 

 the thread of a general thought, which we may possibly see more 

 plainly drawn across his journal than he was perhaps conscious of 

 at the time. 



Our present effort to distinguish Chamisso's more important 

 achievements is made difficult by his having permitted his energy 



