304 DARWIN'S JOURNAL. CHAP, xvm, 



after a long evening walk from Dunnet Links, when I 

 lighted upon this pretty umbelliferous plant hedge 

 parsley ; and here it is ! ' Thus, so closely had he looked 

 up the plants of the county that for some years he could 

 scarcely discover another. Had he been persuaded to 

 give his thoughts to the world, he would have stood very 

 high in the ranks of scientific authors. But he never 

 could be induced to publish his observations and dis- 

 coveries. He could not get over his bashfulness." 



Many discussions about geology occur in the course 

 of the correspondence. Peach sent Dick Darwin's 

 Journal to read. Dick replies : " Though the book was 

 never in my hands before, yet I found that I was already 

 familiar with most of the facts it contains. Sir Charles 

 Lyell draws upon it rather freely. And in various other 

 works I have met with his craft. He is a fine fellow. 

 . . . He traverses the widespread Pampas of Buenos 

 Ayres and Patagonia, rides over their accumulated sand 

 and pebbles and their sepulchres of dead bones, and he 

 is overwhelmed and bewildered at their magnitude. 

 But why should he be astonished ? The sands are many, 

 it is true, and the boulders and stones innumerable ; but 

 the sea, the million-handed ocean, that rounded them in 

 his palm, is vastly more extensive. The sea is a work- 

 man that never wearies, never rests, never slumbers ! 

 Thanks to you and Mr. Darwin, the perusal of the book 

 has confirmed nie in all that I told you long ago. . . . 

 Humboldt half guesses that the living and the fossil 

 animals belong to the still existing creation, but it seems 

 to be convenient to withhold the avowal 



