FOURTH LECTURE. 



THE DIFFERENTIATION OF SPECIES ON THE 

 GALAPAGOS ISLANDS AND THE ORIGIN OF 

 THE GROUP. 



G. BAUR. 



THE Galapagos Islands form a small archipelago, placed 

 below the Equator about 500 miles west of the coast of South 

 America. When discovered by the Spaniards in the sixteenth 

 century, they were found to be uninhabited. At the end of 

 the seventeenth and during the eighteenth and nineteenth 

 centuries they were often visited by the buccaneers and 

 whalers. Only in 1832 a small colony was established on 

 Charles Island, but soon abandoned ; to-day only one island, 

 Chatham, is inhabited. 1 There are five principal islands, eleven 

 smaller ones, and a great number of islets and rocks. Albe- 

 marle is the largest, then follow Indefatigable, Narborough, 

 James, Chatham, Charles, Hood, Bindloe, Abingdon, Barring- 

 ton, Duncan, Tower, Jervis, Wenman, Culpepper, Brattle, 

 Gardner. The whole group is volcanic. The highest mountain 

 (South Albemarle) is 1570 m. high. No volcanic activity has 

 been reported since 1835, but in 1825 a most terrific eruption 

 occurred on Narborough. 



Since Darwin's glorious visit in 1835 (September 15-Octo- 

 ber 20) the Galapagos have been touched at different times for 

 scientific investigation. In 1838 the French frigate " Ve"nus," 



1 The Galapagos were discovered the loth of March, 1535, by the Spaniard 

 Fray Tomas de Berlanga. (Marcos Jimenez de la Espada : Las Islas de los 

 Galapagos y otras mas a poniente. Sociedad Geografica de Madrid, 1892.) In 

 the same paper it is stated that possibly the Inca Tupac Yupangui, the grandfather 

 of the Inca Atahualpa, whom Pizarro so cruelly murdered, discovered the islands. 

 The literature relating to the Galapagos Islands I have published in the Amer. 

 Nat., April, 1891, pp. 320-326. 



