36 CHARLES DARWIN. 



humour to J. M. Herbert : " I have long discovered 

 that geologists never read each other's works, and 

 that the only object in writing a book is a proof of 

 earnestness, and that you do not form your opinions 

 without undergoing labour of some kind." All geolo- 

 gists were, nevertheless, soon agreed in attaching the 

 highest value to these researches. 



From this time forward his work was almost 

 exclusively zoological. The four monographs on the 

 Cirripedia, recent and fossil, occupied eight years 

 from October, 1846, to October, 1854. The works on 

 the recent forms were published by the Kay Society 

 (1851 and 1854), and those on the fossil forms by the 

 Palseontographical Society (1851 and 1854). These 

 researches grew directly out of his observations on 

 the Beagle, but it is evident that they reached far 

 greater dimensions than he had at first intended. 

 Thus, at the very beginning of the work, he wrote 

 (October, 1846) to Hooker: 



" I am going to begin some papers on the lower marine 

 animals, which will last me some months, perhaps a year, and 

 then I shall begin looking over my ten-year-long accumulation 

 of notes on species and varieties, which, with writing, I 

 dare say will take me five years, and then, when published, I 

 dare say I shall stand infinitely low in the opinion of all sound 

 Naturalists so this is my prospect for the future." 



Darwin himself, at any rate towards the end of 

 his life, when he wrote his " Autobiography," doubted 

 "whether this work was worth the consumption of 

 so much time," although admitting that it was of 

 " considerable value " when he had " to discuss in 



