WHAT WE OWE TO DARWIN 5 



for riding and shooting. He came under the 

 influence of Professor Henslow, the botanist, who 

 advised him to read LyelFs " Principles of 

 Geology," and was instrumental in sending him 

 off on the Beagle. 



Of the Beagle voyage, which extended for five 

 years (1831-6), maialy spent along the coasts of 

 South America, Darwin says : " This was by far the 

 most important event in my life, and has deter- 

 nained my whole career." He learned to work 

 hard, he accumulated a wealth of impressions, and 

 he had time to think. On one of his land journeys 

 over the Pampas he was struck by the resemblances 

 between living and extinct forms, and wrote : " This 

 wonderful relationship in the same continent 

 between the dead and the Hving will, I do not 

 doubt, hereafter throw more Hght on the appearance 

 of organic beings on our earth, and their dis- 

 appearance from it, than any other class of facts." 

 The savage character of the natives at Tierra del 

 Fuego and the individuality of the faxma on the 

 various Galapagos islands were seed-impressions 

 which afterwards bore fruit in thought. 



For six years after returning from the Beagle 

 voyage, Darwin worked in London at his collections, 

 especially at the geological specimens. He pub- 

 hshed his " Naturahst's Voyage " in 1839, and in 

 the same year married his cousin, Emma Wedg- 

 wood. As his health had not been good after his 

 return from the Beagle, he left London in 1842, 

 and settled in a country house at Down. There 

 in quiet industry, badly hampered by ill health, 

 he spent the rest of his Hfe. He died on April 19, 

 1882, one of the great Immortals among men. 



Darwin's Books.— The forty years at Down 



