20 GROWTH OF THE 'ORIGIN.' [l843- 



I was hurrying on my studies, so as to take my degree before 

 volunteering to accompany Sir James Ross in the Antarctic 

 Expedition, which had just been determined on by the 

 Admiralty ; and so pressed for time was I, that I used to 

 sleep with the sheets of the ' Journal ' under my pillow, that 

 I might read them between waking and rising. They im- 

 pressed me profoundly, I might say despairingly, with the 

 variety of acquirements, mental and physical, required in 

 a naturalist who should follow in Darwin's footsteps, whilst 

 they stimulated me to enthusiasm in the desire to travel 

 and observe. 



" It has been a permanent source of happiness to me that 

 I knew so much of Mr. Darwin's scientific work so many 

 years before that intimacy began which ripened into feelings 

 as near to those of reverence for his life, works, and cha- 

 racter as is reasonable and proper. It only remains to add 

 to this little episode that I received a copy of the ' Journal ' 

 complete, a gift from Mr. Lyell, a few days before leaving 

 England. 



" Very soon after the return of the Antarctic Expedition 

 my correspondence with Mr. Darwin began (December, 1843) 

 by his sending me a long letter, warmly congratulating 

 me on my return to my family and friends, and expressing 

 a wish to hear more of the results of the expedition, of which 

 he had derived some knowledge from private letters of my 

 own (written to or communicated through Mr. Lyell). Then, 

 plunging at once into scientific matters, he directed my atten- 

 tion to the importance of correlating the Fuegian Flora with 

 that of the Cordillera and of Europe, and invited me to study 

 the botanical collections which he had made in the Galapagos 

 Islands, as well as his Patagonian and Fuegian plants. 



" This led to me sending him an outline of the conclusions 

 I had formed regarding the distribution of plants in the 

 southern regions, and the necessity of assuming the destruc- 

 tion of considerable areas of land to account for the relations 



