48 THE METHOD OF DARWIN. 



the most of them, were due to his conviction 

 that important things were hidden behind them, 

 that they were illustrations of general laws. 



Lawson, Vice-Governor of the Galapagos 

 Islands at the time of Darwin's visit, knew 

 that the tortoises of the different islands dif- 

 fered from one another, and even declared to 

 Darwin that he could tell from which island 

 any tortoise came. 1 He had the time, and 

 the material lay at his feet ; but he left it for 

 Darwin to make the Galapagos Islands famous 

 as illustrations of the local variations of 

 species. Darwin himself had to have the evi- 

 dence thrust upon him from several directions 

 before he grasped its significance, but his 

 greater appreciation of the nature and value 

 of the facts made him their master. 



After his return from the Beagle voyage, 

 Mr. Wedgwood of Maer Hall suggested to 

 him that the apparent sinking of superficial 

 bodies, ashes, marl, cinders, etc., into the 

 earth is due to the action of earth-worms. 2 

 Both the facts and the theory were ready at 

 hand. To the one man they were probably 

 interesting as intellectual playthings; to the 

 other they became the starting point for a 



1 Naturalist's Voyage around the World, pp. 393-398. 



2 The Formation of Vegetable Mould, etc., p. 3. 



