118 J. HOPKINSON ANNIVEESAHY ADDRESS : 



What Darwin has done for geology, irrespective of his direct 

 contributions to the science, cannot be better expressed than in the 

 words of Sir Archibald Geikie, " No man of his time," he says, 

 " has exercised upon the science of geology a profounder influence 

 than has Charles Darwin. . . . When he began to direct his 

 attention to geological inquiry, the sway of the Cataclysmal school 

 of geology was still paramount. But already the Ilniformitarians 

 were gathering strength, and, before many years were past, had 

 ranged themselves under the banner of their great champion, Lyell, 

 Darwin, who always recognised his indebtedness to Lyell's 

 teaching, gave a powerful impulse to its general reception by 

 the way in which he gathered from all parts of the world facts in 

 its support. He continually sought in the phenomena of the 

 present time, the explanation of those of the past. Yet he was all 

 the while laying the foundation on which the later or Evolutional 

 school of geology has been built up. . . . That the Present must 

 be taken as a guide to the Past, has been more fearlessly asserted 

 than ever. And yet it has been recognised that the present differs 

 widely from the past, that there has been a progress everywhere, 

 that Evolution and not Uniformitarianism has been the law by 

 which geological history has been governed. For the impetus 

 with which these views have been advanced in every civilised 

 country, we look up with reverence to the loved and immortal 

 name of Charles Darwin." 



The great progress of our knowledge of physiological and 

 morphological botany in recent years is almost entirely attributable 

 to the researches of Darwin. In showing that " the crossing of 

 forms only slightly differentiated favours the vigour and fertility of 

 their offspring," he opened up the most interesting of all botanical 

 investigations, the relation of insects to flowers. His works on 

 this subject are ' The Fertilisation of Orchids by the Agency of 

 Insects,' and ' The Effects of Cross- and Self -Fertilisation in the 

 Vegetable Kingdom.' His works on ' Insectivorous Plants,' on 

 ' The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species,' 

 and on ' The Power of Movement in Plants,' in the last of which 

 he was assisted by his son Francis, were each of them revelations 

 to botanists. It is wonderful that he should have been the first, if 

 not actually to see, at least to realise the importance of so many 

 phenomena in the life of plants. In the botanical portion of his 

 work on ' The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication,' 

 he shows that horticulturists have been unconsciously making 

 experiments which tend to prove the truth of his theory ever since 

 they first began to cultivate plants. 



