2 5 o LIFE OF DARWIN 



the opinion of some writers, proved that the wide- 

 spread submergence demanded by Darwin's theory is 

 not required to account for the present form and distri- 

 bution of coral islands. But his work will ever remain 

 a classic in the history of geology. 



After working up the geological results of the long 

 voyage in the Beagle, he set himself with great deter- 

 mination to more purely zoological details. While 

 visiting the coast of Chili, he had found a curious new 

 cirripede, to understand the structure of which he had 

 to examine and dissect many of the common forms. 

 The memoir, which was originally designed to describe 

 only his new type, gradually expanded into an elaborate 

 monograph on the Cirrepedes (barnacles) as a whole 

 group. For eight years he continued this self-imposed 

 task, getting at last so weary of it as to feel at times 

 as if the labour had been in some sense wasted which 

 he had spent over it, and this suspicion seems to have 

 remained with him in maturer years. But when at 

 last the two bulky volumes, of more than one thousand 

 pages of text, with forty detailed plates, made their 

 appearance, they were hailed as an admirable contri- 

 bution to the knowledge of a comparatively little 

 known department of the animal kingdom. In the 

 interests of science, perhaps, their chief value is to 

 be recognised not so much in their own high merit 

 as in the practical training which their preparation 

 gave the author in anatomical detail and classification. 

 He spoke of it himself afterwards as a valuable dis- 

 cipline, and Professor Huxley truly affirms that the 

 influence of this discipline was visible in everything 

 which he afterwards wrote. 



