i, ae 
tx OBITUARY 271 
yoyage on which he was starting, with just insight, 
his “second life.” (I. p. 214.) Happily for Darwin’s 
education, the school time of the “ Beagle” lasted 
five years instead of two; and the countries 
which the ship visited were singularly well fitted 
to provide him with object-lessons, on the nature 
of things, of the greatest value. 
While at sea, he diligently collected, studied, 
and made copious notes upon the surface Fauna. 
But with no previous training in dissection, hardly 
any power of drawing, and next to no knowledge 
of comparative anatomy, his occupation with work 
of this kind—notwithstanding all his zeal and 
industry—resulted, for the most part, in a 
vast accumulation of useless manuscript. Some 
acquaintance with the marine Crustacea, observa- 
tions on Planarve and on the ubiquitous Sagitta, 
seem to have been the chief results of a great 
amount of labour in this direction. 
It was otherwise with the terrestrial phenomena 
which came under the voyager’s notice: and 
Geology very soon took her revenge for the scorn 
which the much-bored Edinburgh student had 
poured upon her. Three weeks after leaving 
England the ship touched land for the first time 
at St. Jago, in the Cape de Verd Islands, and 
Darwin found his attention vividly engaged by the 
voleanic phenomena and the signs of upheaval 
which the island presented. His geological 
studies had already indicated the direction in 
