IN MEMORIAM : CHARLES DARWIN 



In this way, from the study of the inhabit- 

 ants of a single well-defined area, Mr. Darwin 

 was led into a series of most grand and startling 

 considerations relating to the past history of 

 life upon our globe. The conclusions thus suc- 

 cinctly stated were amply confirmed by a sur- 

 vey of the distribution of organisms all over the 

 earth, and thus was inaugurated the study of 

 zoological and botanical geography, a study 

 which in half a century has reached such magnifi- 

 cent proportions in the great works of Hooker 

 and Wallace, and which owes its wonderful pro- 

 gress mainly to the sagacious impulse commu- 

 nicated at the outset by Mr. Darwin. It has 

 now become well established that in very few 

 cases, if any, have animals and plants originated 

 exactly in the places whefe we now find them, 

 but that they are almost always the offspring 

 of immigrants ; and the study of the ancient 

 migrations of the progenitors of living plants 

 and animals has begun to throw a flood of light 

 upon the history of the changes that have taken 

 place in the physical geography of the earth. 



The conception of the origin of species 

 through "descent with modifications" having 

 been thus forcibly suggested to Mr. Darwin by 

 the facts of geographical distribution, it was still 

 further strengthened by a study of the geologi 

 cal succession of extinct organisms and thei 

 relations to living organisms in the same areas. 



