82 PEOCEEDINGS OE THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



duties of Secretary. This office, after he had held it for five years, 

 he was compelled to resign through ill health ; but even after he 

 had been driven from London through the same cause, it was the 

 evening meetings of this Society which from time to time tempted 

 him from the seclusion of Down, till at last painful experience 

 proved to him that he must forego this too-exciting pleasure. 



Even after beiog compelled to lay aside his hammer, when he 

 had taken up scalpel and microscope to study the Cirripedia, he did 

 not forget the fossil forms of the same group. 



Whether it was the phenomena of the distribution of organic 

 forms in space, or the curious facts connected with the order of their 

 appearance in time, which had had most to do in turning Darwin's 

 thoughts into those currents which finally led him to Evolution, it 

 would be idle to speculate ; but it may safely be asserted that the 

 geological aspects of Natural History had at least as much to do 

 with the conception of the origin of species as had the biological. 



How warm was Darwin's interest, all through his life, in the 

 progress of every branch of geological research may be gathered 

 from his letters to Lyell and other geological friends. In the work 

 which he had a presentiment would be, and which actually proved, 

 his latest, ' The Eormation of Yegetable Mould through the Action 

 of Worms,' he returned in his old age to a geological problem which 

 had occupied him during the years of his most intimate connexion 

 with our Society. 



'No memories can possibly have such fascination for myself as 

 those of the conversations which, during the last seven years of his 

 life, I was privileged to hold with Mr, Darwin upon the current 

 topics of geological interest. It was his habit when he came to 

 town, twice a year, to ask me to meet him, in order to talk over 

 geological questions, and thus I had opportunities for close inter- 

 course and discussion. ISTo geological researches were too minute, 

 none too remote from the ordinary subjects of his study, to engage 

 his attention and command his sympathies. How keenly did he 

 recall the pleasures of his labours in this Society, and the happiness 

 of the friendships which he had formed here ! How generously and 

 with what warmth of appreciation did he ever speak of the labours 

 of those who had succeeded him in endeavouring to carry out the 

 objects of this Society! Of the gentleness, the sympathy, the con- 

 tagious enthusiasm of the man, I dare not trust myself to speak ! 



At a time when there is perhaps some danger that the excessive 

 specialization which seems to have become a necessity in both the 

 geological and the biological sciences may lead to narrowness of 



