THE VOYAGE. 



49 



I had a striking instance of how easy it is to overlook phe- 

 nomena, however conspicuous, before they have been observed 

 by any one. We spent many hours in Cwm Idwal, examin- 

 ing all the rocks with extreme care, as Sedgwick was anxious 

 to find fossils in them ; but neither of us saw a trace of the 

 wonderful glacial phenomena all around us ; we did not 

 notice the plainly scored rocks, the perched boulders, the 

 lateral and terminal moraines. Yet these phenomena are so 

 conspicuous that, as I declared in a paper published many 

 years afterwards in the - Philosophical Magazine,' * a house 

 burnt down by fire did not tell its story more plainly than did 

 this valley. If it had still been filled' by a glacier, the phe- 

 nomena would have been less distinct than they now are. 



At Capel Curig I left Sedgwick and went in a straight line 

 by compass and map across the mountains to Barmouth, 

 never following any track unless it coincided with my course. 

 I thus came on some strange wild places, and enjoyed much 

 this manner of travelling. I visited Barmouth to see some 

 Cambridge friends who were reading there, and thence re- 

 turned to Shrewsbury and to Maer for shooting; for at that 

 time I should have thought myself mad to give up the first 

 days of partridge-shooting for geology or any other science. 



Voyage of the ' Beagle ' from December 27, 1831, to October 2, 



1836. 



On returning home from my short geological tour in North 

 Wales, I found a letter from Henslow, informing me that 

 Captain Fitz-Roy was willing to give up part of his own 

 cabin to any young man who would volunteer to go with him 

 without pay as naturalist to the Voyage of the Beagle. I 

 have given, as I believe, in my MS. Journal an account of 

 all the circumstances which then occurred; I will here only 

 say that I was instantly eager to accept the offer, but my 

 father strongly objected, adding the words, fortunate for me, 



* ' Philosophical Magazine,' 1842. 



