272 



EVOLUTION 



by all the separate classes of workers, 

 and has thereby revolutionized the 

 whole study of nature. 



Let us first glance over the Journal 

 of Researches, in which are recorded 

 the main facts and observations which 

 struck the young traveler, and see how 

 far we can detect here the germs of 

 those ideas and problems to the work- 

 ing out of which he devoted a long and 

 laborious life. 



THE JOURNAL OF RESEARCHES 



TTie question of the causes which 

 have produced the distribution and 

 dispersal of organisms seems to have 

 been a constant subject of observation 

 and meditation. At an early period of 

 the voyage he collected infusorial dust 

 which had fallen on the ship when at 

 sea, and he notes the suggestive fact 

 that in similar dust collected on a ves- 

 sel 300 miles from land he found par- 

 ticles of stone above the thousandth 

 of an inch square, and remarks: "After 

 this fact, one need not be surprised at 

 the diffusion of the far lighter and 

 smaller sporules of cryptogamic plants." 

 He records many cases of insects occur- 

 ring far out at sea, on one occasion 

 when the nearest land was 370 miles 

 distant. The remarkable facts presented 

 bv the Galapagos Islands brought out so 

 cJearlv and strongly the insuperable 

 difficulties of the then accepted theory 

 of the independent origin of species, as 

 to keep this great problem ever pres- 

 ent in his mind, and, at a later period, 

 led him to devote himself to the pa- 

 tient and laborious inquiries which 

 were the foundation of his immortal 

 work. He again and again remarks on 

 the singular facts presented by these 

 islands. Wliy, he asks, were the aborig- 

 inal inhabitants of the Galapagos cre- 

 ated on American types of organiza- 

 tion, though the two countries differ 

 totally in geological character and 

 physical conditions? Why are so many 



of the species peculiar to the separate 

 islands? 



He remarks on the occasional blind- 

 ness of the burrowing tucutucu of the 

 Pampas as supporting the view of La- 

 marck on the gradually acquired blind- 

 ness of the aspalax; on the hard point 

 of the tail of the trigonoccphalus, 

 which constantly vibrates and produces 

 a rattling noise by striking against grass 

 and brushwood, as a character varying 

 towards the complete rattle of the rat- 

 tlesnake; on the small size of the wild 

 horses in the Falkland Islands, as 

 progressing toward a small breed like 

 the Shetland ponies of the North; on 

 the strange fact of the cattle having 

 increased in size, and partly separated 

 into two differently coloured breeds. 

 While collecting the remains of the 

 great extinct mammals of the Pampas, 

 he was much impressed by the fact 

 that, however huge in size and strange 

 in form, they were all allied to living 

 South American animals, as were those 

 of the cave-deposits of Australia to the 

 Marsupials of that country. 



Soon after his return home in 1837, 

 it occurred to him "that something 

 might be made out on this question by 

 patiently accumulating and reflecting 

 on all sorts of facts which could pos- 

 sibly have any bearing upon it." He 

 tells us that he worked on for five years 

 before he allowed himself to speculate 

 on the subject, and then, having formu- 

 lated his provisional hvpothesis in a 

 definite shape during the next two 

 years, he devoted another fifteen years 

 to continuous obser\'ation, experiment, 

 and literary research, before he gave to 

 the astounded scientific world an ab- 

 stract of his theory in all its wide- 

 embracing scope and vast array of 

 evidence, in his epoch-making volume. 

 The Origin of Species. This work was 

 the outcome of twenty-seven years of 

 continuous thought and labour, by one 

 of the most patient, most truth-loving, 

 and most acute intellects of our age. 



