DARWIN MEMORIAL. 57 



illness which prostrated him for days together, and which were fol- 

 lowed by long periods of wakeful convalescence. Under the cir- 

 cumstances, the amount of keen and patient observation, the vast 

 accumulation of facts, and the extensive collections obtained by 

 Mr. Darwin during his voyage, appear more marvelous than ever. 



After his return his health was much shattered, and his studies 

 more or less interrupted for some years. He took his Master's de- 

 gree in course, and shortly after his return was elected a Fellow of 

 the Royal Society, (of which his father and grandfather were pre- 

 viously Fellows,) and of the Geological Society, of which last he 

 was made secretary. 



In 1839 he published his epoch-making work "A Journal of 

 Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various 

 Countries visited by H. M. S. Beagle; " the first of that long 

 series of investigations to which his life was devoted, and the pub- 

 lication of which revolutionized the study of biology, and gave to 

 Darwin a position as a naturalist unparalleled in the history of 

 science. 



In the same year, 1839, Mr. Darwin married his cousin, Emma 

 Wedgewood, and retired to the secluded and beautiful district of 

 Kent where, in his country-house of Downe Court, near Orpington, 

 more than forty years of his life were spent. The district is purely 

 agricultural, a plateau of chalk, some 400 feet above the sea, in- 

 terrupted by the wavy hollows characteristic of the English chalk 

 country, with beech woods here and there on the slopes. His 

 dwelling is one of the old square-built, red-brick mansions of the 

 last century, to which has been added in more recent times a gable- 

 fronted wing, with another square-built wing and pillared portico 

 on the corresponding side. Shut in and almost hidden from the 

 roadway by a high wall and belt of trees it offers ideal seclusion 

 for a quiet student. On the southern side the walled garden opens 

 into a secluded meadow bounded by a tract of underwood through 

 which there is a lovely view of the narrow valley which descends 

 toward Westerham. 



