NA TURE 



289 



THURSDAY, FEBRUARY i, 1877 



DARWIN'S ''GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS" 



Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands and 

 Paris of South Afnerica visited during the Voyage of 

 H.M.S. ''Beagle." By Charles Darwin, M.A., F.R.S. 

 Second Edition, with Maps and Illustrations. (Lon- 

 don : Smith, Elder, and Co., 1876,) 



MR. DARWIN'S important contributions to biologi- 

 cal observation and theory have during the last 

 seventeen years attracted so much public attention, that 

 there is some danger — one from which, however, all geolo- 

 gists will claim exemption — of his valuable labours in 

 almost every department of geological research being to 

 some extent lost sight of. Long, however, before the publi- 

 cation of the " Origin of Species," its author had achieved 

 a foremost place in the ranks of the cultivators of geolo- 

 gical science ; nor must it be forgotten that the great 

 work itself is as much a contribution to geology as to 

 biology. Students of Mr. Darwin's earlier geological 

 writings must all have been impressed by the powers of 

 minute observation, the acumen in testing, and the skill 

 in grouping data, and the boldness and originality in 

 generalisation which distinguish their author ; for these 

 characteristics are no less conspicuously displayed in the 

 theory of Coral Reefs than in that of Natural Selection. 

 In December, 1831, Mr. Darwin sailed from England 

 in H.M. surveying vessel the Beagle, having accepted an 

 invitation from the late Capt. FitzRoy to act as volunteer 

 naturalist to the expedition then being despatched to com- 

 plete the survey of the coast of South America. After an 

 absence of nearly five years — during which many of the 

 islands in the Atlantic were examined, large portions 

 of both the east and west coasts of South America 

 fully explored, several inland traverses of that continent 

 made, the Falkland and Galapagos Islands carefully 

 studied, and more rapid visits paid to Tahiti, New Zea- 

 land, Australia, Tasmania, the Cape of Good Hope, and 

 a number of the coral islands in the Indian Ocean — the 

 expedition returned to this country in August, 1S36. Not 

 a few important scientific discoveries will be associated 

 with the names of the vessels of the United States Ex- 

 ploring Expedition, with the Novarct, the Challenger^ and 

 many another surveying ship that might be mentioned ; but 

 it will be long indeed, we suspect, ere any vessel attains 

 such a proud position in the annals of science as was 

 won by the little ten-gun brig which bore our naturalist 

 in his now famous " Voyage Round the World." Wherever 

 in future the sciences of biology and geology shall be 

 cultivated, there will the name of the Beagle become a 

 household word. 



The ten years which followed his return to England 

 would appear to have been mainly devoted by Mr. Darwin 

 to the publication of the numerous and important results 

 obtained during the voyage. Besides editing the treatises 

 of Prof. Owen, Mr. Waterhouse, Mr. Gould, the Rev. L. 

 Jenyns, and Mr. Bell on the different groups of vertebrate 

 animals, of which specimens were brought home, he wrote 

 two very important works, one addressed to general 

 readers — the " Naturalist's Voyage Round the World " — 

 and the other of a more purely scientific character — the 

 " Geology of the Voyage of the Beagle." 

 Vol. XV.— No. ^7Q 



Before the publication of the " Origin of Species" had 

 made the author's name so widely famous as it is at pre- 

 sent, the works which we have named above, with the 

 several memoirs communicated by their author to the 

 Transactions and Journal of the Geological Society, had 

 become universal favourites with the students of various 

 branches of natural science ; and this, no less on account 

 of the rich store of novel observations which they con- 

 tained, than for the originality and suggestiveness of their 

 deductions from those observations. And since the ap- 

 pearance of their author's inagmim opus, we confess that 

 these earlier writings have for ourselves acquired a strange 

 fascination. Again and again have we perused them, 

 only to detect valuable observations and striking sugges- 

 tions before missed, and to encounter fresh traces of the 

 germs of ideas, that, alter twenty-eight years of earnest 

 thought and study, were developed into the theory of 

 descent with modification, which is now exercising so 

 important an influence on the progress of the natural 

 sciences. At the commencement of the present notice 

 we ventured to claim for geology at least a moiety of the 

 advantages which have flowed from the publication of 

 the " Origin of Species ; " and, on the other hand, we feel 

 that we are putting forward no undue demands on behalf 

 of the same science, in declaring that the theory of 

 Natural Selection must be regarded in at least as great a 

 degree the prize of geological observation as the reward 

 of biological research. 



Such being the case, these "Geological Observations" 

 are well worthy to take their place in the long series of the 

 author's contributions to the doctrine of descent, side by 

 side with those more widely known works on different 

 departments of zoology and botany which have been pub- 

 1 ished subsequently to the " Origin of Species." Two 

 years ago the first part of the " Geology of the Voyage of 

 t]\Q Beagle" — a work which has long been out of print, 

 and has become extremely scarce — was republished ; and 

 naturalists and geologists were alike gratified by the ap- 

 pearance of this revised and enlarged edition of the well- 

 known memoir on Coral Reefs. The work now before us 

 is a re-issue of the remaining portions of the " Geology of 

 the Voyage of the Beagle" and will be equally welcome to 

 a large section of the scientific public. 



The districts described in the present work, as Mr. 

 Darwin justly observes in his preface to the new edition, 

 " have been so rarely visited by men of science " that very 

 little " could be corrected or added from observations sub- 

 sequently made." And on the other hand attempts to 

 modernize the terminology could scarcely fail to detract 

 from the minute accuracy of observations, which were 

 clearly either recorded upon the actual spot where they 

 were made, or at all events while the memory of them was 

 still fresh and vivid in the mind of the author. We think, 

 therefore, that a wise discretion has been exercised in 

 allowing the descriptions and discussions of phenomena 

 to remain in precisely the same form as when they were 

 originally drawn up ; though we must confess to a feeling 

 of disappointment at the absence of notes from the 

 author's pen, indicating how far in his own view some of 

 these original conclusions have been strengthened or 

 modified by his later studies and researches. 



We can only permit ourselves to recall a few of the 

 more important among the valuable contents of this book 



p 



