PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 11 



though still the standard works of their class, they are, as 

 his work, almost obscured by the later works by which he 

 became for ever immortalized. The details of the voyage 

 itself are full of interest, and the notes in his diary by sea 

 and land show that his eyes were always open to observe 

 and note any phenomena of nature, however seemingly 

 trivial and of whatever class. Whether in the domain 

 of botany, geology, or zoology, he was equally at home, 

 and if unable to explain any point at the time of obser- 

 vation, it was carefully noted for further examination or 

 experiment. 



As an instance of Darwin's observation of what might 

 easily escape the notice of less keen naturalists, he dis- 

 covered no less than 63 microscopic organic forms in the 

 extraordinary showers of fine dust occasionally witnessed 

 at sea, and, among other things, he thus accounts for the 

 wide diffusion of the sporules of cryptogamic plants. 



Within a year of his return to England Darwin took 

 his degree of Master of Arts ; three years later he married, 

 and in 1842 settled at Down, in Kent. Then commenced 

 the work in that quiet happy English home which, as 

 Mr. Romanes says, " continued up to the day of his death, 

 and which has been more effectual than any other in 

 making the nineteenth century illustrious." For twenty- 

 two years little was heard of Mr. Darwin, and we may 

 easily imagine regrets expressed that the accomplished 

 naturalist of the ' Beagle ' should have retired into private 

 life. But, in 1859, appeared his great, if not his greatest, 

 work on the " Origin of Species," the result of twenty 

 years' patient study and reflection. In the introduction 

 to the book he modestly says ; — 



" When on H.M.S. ' Beagle ' as naturalist, I was much 

 struck with certain facts in the distribution of the organic 

 beings inhabiting South America, and in the geological 



