294 LIFE AT DOWN. ^TAT. 38-45. 



given. The reviewer speaks of the ''bold and startling" 

 character of the work, but seems to recognize the fact that 

 the views are generally accepted by geologists. By that time 

 the minds of men were becoming more ready to receive geol- 

 ogy of this type. Even ten years before, in 1837, Lyell * 

 says, '^ people are now much better prepared to believe Dar- 

 win when he advances proofs of the slow rise of the Andes, 

 than they were in 1830, when I first startled them with that 

 doctrine." This sentence refers to the theory elaborated in 

 my father's geological observations on South America (1846), 

 but the gradual change in receptivity of the geological mind 

 must have been favourable to all his geological work. Never- 

 theless, Lyell seems at first not to have expected any ready 

 acceptance of the Coral theory ; thus he wrote to my father 

 in 1837: — "I could think of nothing for days after your 

 lesson on coral reefs, but of the tops of submerged continents. 

 It is all true, but do not flatter yourself that you will be be- 

 lieved till you are growing bald like me, with hard work and 

 vexation at the incredulity of the world." 



The second part of the ' Geology of the Voyage of the 

 Beagle^' i. e. the volume on Volcanic Islands, which specially 

 concerns us now, cannot be better described than by again 

 quoting from Professor Geikie (p. 18) : — 



" Full of detailed observations, this work still remains the 

 best authority on the general geological structure of most of 

 the regions it describes. At the time it was written the 

 * crater of elevation theory,' though opposed by Constant 

 Prevost, Scrope, and Lyell, was generally accepted, at least 

 on the Continent. Darwin, however, could not receive it as 

 a valid explanation of the facts ; and though he did not share 

 the view of its chief opponents, but ventured to propose a 

 hypothesis of his own, the observations impartially made and 

 described by him in this volume must be regarded as having 

 contributed towards the final solution of the difficulty." Pro- 

 fessor Geikie continues (p. 21): "He is one of the earliest 



* <■ 



Life of Sir Charles Lyell,' vol. ii. p. 6. 



