DARWIN AND HUMBOLDT. 



[311] 7 



III. WORK IN GEOLOGY. 



BY ARCHIBALD GEIKIE, F.R.S. 



No man of his time has exercised 

 upon the science of Geology a pro- 

 founder influence than Charles Dar- 

 avin. At an early period of his life 

 he took much interest in geological 

 studies, and in later years, while en- 

 gaged in other pursuits, he kept him- 

 self acquainted with the progress that 

 was being made in this depai'tment 

 of natural knowledge. His influence 

 upon it has been twofold, aiising 

 partly from the importance and orig- 

 inality of some of his own contribu- 

 tions to the literature of the science, 

 but chiefly from the bearing of his 

 work on other branches of natural 

 history. 



When he began to direct his atten- 

 tion to geological inquiry the sway of 

 the Cataclysmal school of geology 

 was still paramount. But already 

 the Uniformitarians were gathering 

 strength, and, before many years 

 were past, had ranged themselves un- 

 der the banner of their great champion, 

 Ltkli . Darwin, who always re- 

 cognized his indebtedness to Lyell's 

 teaching, gave a powerful impulse to 

 its general reception by the way in 

 which he gathered from all parts of 

 the world facts in its support. He 

 continually sought in the phenomena 

 of the present time the explanation of 

 those of the past. Yet he was all the 

 while laying the foundation on which 

 the later or Evolutional school of 

 geology has been built up. 



Darwin' s specially geological mem- 

 oirs are not numerous, nor have they 

 been of the same epoch-making kind 

 as his biological researches. But 

 every one of them bears the stamp 

 of his marvelous acuteness in observa- 

 tion, his sagacity in grouping scatter- 

 ed facts, and his unrivalled far- 

 reaching vision that commanded all 

 their mutual bearings, as well as their 

 place in the general economy of things. 

 His long travels in the Beagle afford- 

 ed him opportunities of making him- 



self acquainted with geological phe- 

 nomena of the most varied kinds. 

 With the exception of one or two 

 minor papers written in later years, 

 it may be said that all his direct con- 

 tributions to geology arose out of 

 the Beagle voyage. The largest and 

 most important part of his geological 

 work deal with the hypogene forces- 

 of nature — those that are concerned 

 in volcanoes and earthquakes, in the 

 elevation of mountains and continents,. 

 in the subsidence of vast areas of the 

 sea-bottom, and in the crumpling, 

 foliation, and cleavage of the rocks- 

 of the earth's crust. His researches 

 in these subjects were mainly embod- 

 ied in the Geology of the Voyage of 

 the Beagle — a work which, in three 

 successive parts, was published under 

 the auspices of the Lords of the 

 Treasury. 



The order chosen by Darwin for 

 the subjects of these three parts 

 probably indicates the relative im- 

 portance with which they were re- 

 garded by himself. The first was en- 

 titled The Structure and Distribu- 

 tion of Coral Beefs (1842). This 

 well-known treatise, the most orig- 

 inal of all its author's geological 

 memoirs, has become one of the re- 

 cognized classics of geological litera- 

 ture. The origin of those remarkable 

 rings of coral-rock in mid-ocean had 

 given rise to much speculation, but 

 no satisfactory solution of the problem 

 had been proposed. After visiting 

 many of them, and examining also 

 coral-reefs that fringe islands and 

 continents, he offered a theory which 

 for simplicity and grandeur strikes 

 every reader with astonishment. It 

 is pleasant after the lapse of many 

 years to recall the delight with which 

 one first read the Coral Beefs, how 

 one watched the facts being marshal- 

 led into their places, nothing being 

 ignored or passed lightly over, and 

 how step by step one was led up to 

 the grand conclusion of wide oceanic 

 subsidence. No more admirable 

 example of scientific method was 

 ever given to the world, and even if 

 he had written nothing else, this 



