388 GROWTH OF THE 'ORIGIN/ [1844. 



me of the progress he had made in his own work, asking my 

 opinion on various points. I saw no more of him till about 

 noon, when I heard his mellow ringing voice calling my 

 name under my window this was to join him in his daily 

 forenoon walk round the sand-walk.* On joining him I 

 found him in a rough grey shooting-coat in summer, and 

 thick cape over his shoulders in winter, and a stout staff in 

 his hand ; away we trudged through the garden, where there 

 was always some experiment to visit, and on to the sand- 

 walk, round which a fixed number of turns were taken, during 

 which our conversation usually ran on foreign lands and seas, 

 old friends, old books, and things far off to both mind and 

 eye. 



" In the afternoon there was another such walk, after which 

 he again retired till dinner if well enough to join the family ; 

 if not, he generally managed to appear in the drawing-room, 

 where seated in his high chair, with his feet in enormous car- 

 pet shoes, supported on a high stool he enjoyed the music 

 or conversation of his family." 



Here follows a series of letters illustrating the growth of 

 my father's views, and the nature of his work during this 

 period.] 



C. Darwin to J. D. Hooker. 



Down [1844]. 



. . . The conclusion, which I have come at is, that those 

 areas, in which species are most numerous, have oftenest been 

 divided and isolated from other areas, united and again di- 

 vided ; a process implying antiquity and some changes in the 

 external conditions. This will justly sound very hypothetical. 

 I cannot give my reasons in detail ; but the most general con- 

 clusion, which the geographical distribution of all organic 

 beings, appears to me to indicate, is that isolation is the chief 

 concomitant or cause of the appearance of new forms (I well 



* See p. 93. 



