248 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The voyage of the Beagle ended in the autumn of 1836, and 

 Darwin landed in England on the 2d of October. He proceeded to 

 put into sbajie his views on the coral islands of the Pacific, and in 

 May, 1837, they were communicated to the public in a paper read be- 

 fore the Geological Society of London. His theory took the scientific 

 world by storm. It was well calculated so to do. There was an 

 attractive grandeur in the conception of some great continent sinking 

 slowly, slowly, into the vast bed of the Southern Ocean, having all its 

 hills and pinnacles gradually covered by coral reefs as in succession 

 they sank down to the proper depth, until at last only its pinnacles 

 remained as the basis of atolls, and these remained, like buoys upon a 

 wreck, only to mark where some mountain-peak had been finally sub- 

 merged. Besides the grandeur and simplicity of this conception, it 

 fitted well into the Lyellian doctrine of the " bit-by-bit " operation of 

 all geological causes — a doctrine which had then already begun to 

 establish its later wide popularity. Lyell had published the first edi- 

 tion of his famous " Principles " in January, 1830 — that is to say, 

 almost two years before the Beagle sailed. He had adopted the 

 volcanic theory of the origin of the coral islands ; and it is remarkable 

 that he had nevertheless suggested the idea, although in a wholly dif- 

 ferent connection, that the Pacific presented in all probability an area 

 of subsidence. Darwin most probably had this suggestion in his mind 

 when he used it and adopted it for an argument which its author had 

 never entertained.* However this may be, it must have prepared the 

 greatest living teacher of geology to adopt the new explanation which 

 turned his own hint to such w^onderful account. And adopt it he 

 did, accordingly. The theory of the young naturalist was hailed 

 with acclamation. It was a magnificent generalization. It was soon 

 almost universally accepted Avith admiration and delight. It passed 

 into all popular treatises, and ever since for the space of nearly half 

 a century it has maintained its unquestioned place as one of the great 

 triumphs of reasoning and research. Although its illustrious author 

 has since eclipsed this earliest performance by theories and generali- 

 zations still more attractive and much further reaching, I have heard 

 eminent men declare that, if he had done nothing else, his solution of 

 the great problem of the coral islands of the Pacific would have suf- 

 ficed to place hira on the unsubmergeable peaks of science, crowned 

 with an immortal name. 



And now comes the great lesson. After an interval of more than 

 five-and-thirty years the voyage of the Beagle has been followed 

 by the voyage of the Challenger, furnished with all the newest 

 appliances of science, and manned by a scientific staff more than com- 

 petent to turn them to the best account. And what is one of the 

 many results that have been added to our knowledge of Nature — to 

 our estimate of the true character and history of the globe w^e live 

 * Lyell's " Principles," eleventh edition, p. 595. 



