PREFACE. 



talents and disinterested zeal of the above distinguished authors, 

 could not have been undertaken, had it not been for the libe- 

 rality of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, 

 who, through the representation of the Right Honourable the 

 Chancellor of the Exchequer, have been pleased to grant a sum 

 of one thousand pounds towards defraying part of the expenses 

 of publication. 



I have myself published separate volumes on the ' Structure 

 and Distribution of Coral Reefs ;' on the ' Volcanic Islands 

 visited during the Voyage of the Beagle;' and on the 'Geology 

 of South America.' The sixth volume of the ' Geological Trans- 

 actions' contains two papers of mine on the Erratic Boulders 

 and Volcanic Phenomena of South America. Messrs. Water- 

 house, Walker, Newman, and White, have published several 

 able papers on the Insects which were collected, and I trust that 

 many others will hereafter follow. The plants from the southern 

 parts of America will be given by Dr. J. Hooker, in his great 

 work on the Botany of the Southern Hemisphere. The Flora ot 

 the Galapagos Archipelago is the subject of a separate memoir 

 by him, in the * Linnean Transactions.' The Reverend Professor 

 Henslow has published a list of the plants collected by me at 

 the Keeling Islands ; and the Reverend J. M. Berkeley has de- 

 scribed my cryptogamic plants. 



I shall have the pleasure of acknowledging the great assist- 

 ance which I have received from several other naturalists, in the 

 course of this and my other works ; but I must be here allowed 

 to return my most sincere thanks to the Reverend Professor 

 Henslow, who, when I was an under-graduate at Cambridge, 

 was one chief means of giving me a taste for Natural History, 

 — who, during my absence, took charge of the collections I sent 

 iiome, and by his correspondence directed my endeavours, — and 

 who, since my return, has constantly rendered me every assist- 

 ance which the kindest friend could offer. 



Doicn, Bromley, Kent. 

 June, 1845. 



