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Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 



its effects must be felt for all time to come. Its influence in directing 

 research toward the natural sciences, and its effect upon the whole 

 world has been such, that when the descendants of this generation, as 

 the poetical Tyndall puts it, " shall have melted into the infinite azure 

 of the past," the decade in which Charles Darwin's " Origin of Species" 

 appeared, will form as bright an epoch in natural science as the age of 

 Shakespeare in Dramatic Literature, as the discovery of America in 

 History, or the advent of Christ in theology. And though the subject 

 of this notice has received most of the honor gained by the publication 

 of the theory, his co-discoverer and worker, Mr. Wallace, is entitled to 

 a full share of the honor. With a generosity unhappily seldom known 

 in science, he urged Mr. Darwin to bring the theory before the public 

 in a worthy manner, while he himself stood in the background. 



The " Origin of Species" was the first of a long series of books and 

 papers upon matters intimately connected with the theories of natural 

 selection and the struggle for existence. In 1862 appeared a volume 

 "On the Various Contrivances by which British and Fore gnOrchids 

 are fertilized by Insects, and on the good effects of Intercrossing" — a 

 second edition, with many additions, being issued in 1877. This is a 

 book full of interesting facts, told in a fascinating manner, and show- 

 ing the benefits derived from occasional crossing. It is but one in- 

 stance of the wonderful power of Mr. Darwin in observing, recording 

 and commenting upon things which to other eyes would be unseen or 

 inexplicable. In the hands of Mr. Darwin order is brought out of 

 chaos, and what would under other circumstances be a mere jumble, is 

 through the medium of his pen a work of lasting value. 



He contributed various articles relating to the fertilization of plants, 

 and the forms of flowers to different periodicals, but especially to the 

 Transactions of the Linnean Society. These were afterwards re- 

 published with much additional matter in separate volumes. But in 

 1868 appeared the " Variation ot Animals and Plants under Domesti- 

 cation,'' two volumes of over 800 pages, which contain innumerable 

 facts, and the details of many experiments. -A glance at the table of 

 contents of these volumes gives a slight idea of the amount of labor 

 necessary to prepare the work. Over one hundred pages are devoted 

 to pigeons alone, and such marvelous changes are noted in the plum- 

 age, and in the structure of all parts of the skeleton, that the reader 

 is astonished when told that all the 150 breeds of our domestic pigeons 

 are descended from a single species, and is nearly ready to believe 

 from facts there given, in the theory of the origin of one species from 

 another. 



