87 
Dec. 31, 1909- The Queensland Naturalist. 
Captain Fitzroy, of the Beagle, was afterwards better 
known as Admiral Fitzroy, the meteorologist. On this 
voyage. Darwin volunteered his services without salary, 
and partly paid his own expenses on condition that he 
retained possession of the animals and plants to be collected 
on the voyage. 
When Charles Darwin returned to England he was 
nearly twenty-eight years of age ; when he published the 
first edition of the “ Origin of Species,’’ he was nearly fifty. 
The intermediate years was devoted to the collection of 
material for the one aim of his life — the settlement of the 
question of organic evolution. Darwin, like Lyell, was 
luckily free from the necessity for earning his living. He 
settled doAvn in a home of his own, with perfect leisure for 
carrying out the great work for which his descent and 
training had fitted him. The arrangement and classifica- 
tion of the zoological collections were his first duties. To 
assist him, he called to his aid Richard Owen, Waterhouse, 
Gould, Jenyns, and Bell. The results were embodied 
in a work entitled the “ Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle,’’ 
of which Darwin was editor ; and in the society of these 
experts his knowledge and critical powers were strengthened 
and extended. 
The germs of those inquiring ideas about the origin 
of species were even then present, but he was too wise to 
give them as yet to the world. This is his own account 
of its slow evolution : — 
“On my return home in 1837, it occurred to me that 
something might perhaps be made out of this question, 
by patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of 
facts, which could possibly have any bearing on it. After 
five years work, I allowed myself to speculate on the sub- 
ject, and drew up some short notes ; these I enlarged in 
1844 into a sketch of the conclusions that then seemed 
to me probable ; from that period to the present day (1859),. 
I have steadily pursued the same object. I hope that I may 
be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give 
them to show that 1 have not been hasty in coming to a 
decision.” 
In the early part of 1839, Charles Darwin married his 
cousin, Miss Emma Wedgwood, and after three years of 
married life in London, finally settled at Down House, 
near Orpington, in Kent. He was already a Fellow of the 
Royal Society, and Secretary of the Geological Society. 
Of this period of his life, Grant Allen says : — “ His private 
means enabled him to live the pleasant life of an English 
country gentleman, and devote himself unremittingly 
to the pursuit of science. Ill health interfered sadly with 
his powers of work ; but system and patience did wonders 
during his working days, which were regularly parcelled 
