Geological Study on board the “ Beagle” 349 
they were packed up for despatch to Henslow. Besides hand- 
magnifiers and a microscope, Darwin had an equipment for blow- 
pipe-analysis, a contact-goniometer and magnet; and these were in 
constant use by him. His small library of reference (now included 
in the Collection of books placed by Mr F. Darwin in the Botany 
School at Cambridge’) appears to have been admirably selected, and 
in all probability contained (in addition to a good many works 
relating to South America) a fair number of excellent books of 
reference. Among those relating to mineralogy, he possessed the 
manuals of Phillips, Alexander Brongniart, Beudant, von Kobell and 
Jameson: also the Cristallographie of Brochant de Villers and, for 
blowpipe work, Dr Children’s translation of the book of Berzelius on 
the subject. In addition to these, he had Henry’s Eaperimental 
Chemistry and Ure’s Dictionary (of Chemistry). A work, he evidently 
often employed, was P. Syme’s book on Werner's Nomenclature of 
Colours; while, for Petrology, he used Macculloch’s Geological Classi- 
Jication of Rocks. How diligently and well he employed his instru- 
ments and books is shown by the valuable observations recorded in 
the annotated Catalogues drawn up on board ship. 
These catalogues have on the right-hand pages numbers and 
descriptions of the specimens, and on the opposite pages notes on 
the specimens—the result of experiments made at the time and 
written in a very small hand. Of the subsequently made pencil notes, 
I shall have to speak later’. 
It is a question of great interest to determine the period and the 
occasion of Darwin’s first awakening to the great problem of the 
transmutation of species. He tells us himself that his grandfather’s 
Zoonomia had been read by him “but without producing any effect,” 
and that his friend Grant’s rhapsodies on Lamarck and his views on 
evolution only gave rise to “astonishment?.” 
Huxley, who had probably never seen the privately printed 
volume of letters to Henslow, expressed the opinion that Darwin 
could not have perceived the important bearing of his discovery of 
bones in the Pampean Formation, until they had been studied in 
England, and their analogies pronounced upon by competent com- 
parative anatomists. And this seemed to be confirmed by Darwin's 
own entry in his pocket-book for 1837, “In July opened first note- 
1 Catalogue of the Library of Charles Darwin now in the Botany School, Cambridge. 
Compiled by H. W. Rutherford; with an introduction by Francis Darwin. Cambridge, 
1908. 
2 I am greatly indebted to my friend Mr A. Harker, F.R.S., for his assistance in 
examining these specimens and catalogues. He has also arranged the specimens in the 
Sedgwick Museum, so as to make reference to them easy. The specimens from Ascension 
and a few others are however in the Museum at Jermyn Street. 
3 LZ. L.1. p. 38. 
