The Voyage of the Beagle   
   
Chapter XX   
   
   
Keeling Island—Singular appearance—Scanty Flora—Transport of Seeds—Birds and Insects—Ebbing and flowing Springs—Fields of dead Coral—Stone transported in the roots of Trees—Great Crab—Stinging Corals—Coral-eating Fish—Coral Formations—Lagoon Islands, or Atolls—Depth at which reef-building Corals can live—Vast Areas interspersed with low Coral Islands—Subsidence of their foundations—Barrier Reefs—Fringing Reefs—Conversion of Fringing Reefs into Barrier Reefs, and into Atolls—Evidence of changes in Level—Breaches in Barrier Reefs—Maldiva Atolls; their peculiar structure—Dead and submerged Reefs—Areas of subsidence and elevation—Distribution of Volcanoes—Subsidence slow, and vast in amount   
   
   
APRIL 1st.—We arrived in view of the Keeling or Cocos Islands, situated in the Indian Ocean, and about six hundred miles distant from the coast of Sumatra. This is one of the lagoon-islands (or atolls) of coral formation, similar to those in the Low Archipelago which we passed near. When the ship was in the channel at the entrance, Mr. Liesk, an English resident, came off in his boat. The history of the inhabitants of this place, in as few words as possible, is as follows. About nine years ago, Mr. Hare, a worthless character, brought from the East Indian archipelago a number of Malay slaves, which now, including children, amount to more than a hundred. Shortly afterwards, Captain Ross, who had before visited these islands in his merchant-ship, arrived from England, bringing with him his family and goods for settlement: along with him came Mr. Liesk, who had been a mate in his vessel. The Malay slaves soon ran away from the islet on which Mr. Hare was settled, and joined Captain Ross’s party. Mr. Hare upon this was ultimately obliged to leave the place.     1   
  The Malays are now nominally in a state of freedom, and certainly are so, as far as regards their personal treatment; but in most other points they are considered as slaves. From their discontented state, from the repeated removals from islet to islet, and perhaps also from a little mismanagement, things are not very prosperous. The island has no domestic quadruped, excepting the pig, and the main vegetable production is the cocoa-nut. The whole prosperity of the place depends on this tree: the only exports being oil from the nut, and the nuts themselves, which are taken to Singapore and Mauritius, where they are chiefly used, when grated, in making curries. On the cocoa-nut, also, the pigs, which are loaded with fat, almost entirely subsist, as do the ducks and poultry. Even a huge land-crab is furnished by nature with the means to open and feed on this most useful production.     2   
  The ring-formed reef of the lagoon-island is surmounted in the greater part of its length by linear islets. On the northern or leeward side, there is an opening through which vessels can pass to the anchorage within. On entering, the scene was very curious and rather pretty; its beauty, however, entirely depended on the brilliancy of the surrounding colours. The shallow, clear, and still water of the lagoon, resting in its greater part on white sand, is, when illumined by a vertical sun, of the most vivid green. This brilliant expanse, several miles in width, is on all sides divided, either by a line of snow-white breakers from the dark heaving waters of the ocean, or from the blue vault of heaven by the strips of land, crowned by the level tops of the cocoa-nut trees. As a white cloud here and there affords a pleasing contrast with the azure sky, so in the lagoon, bands of living coral darken the emerald green water.     3   
  The next morning after anchoring, I went on shore on Direction Island. The strip of dry land is only a few hundred yards in width; on the lagoon side there is a white calcareous beach, the radiation from which under this sultry climate was very oppressive; and on the outer coast, a solid broad flat of coral-rock served to break the violence of the open sea. Excepting near the lagoon, where there is some sand, the land is entirely composed of rounded fragments of coral. In such a loose, dry, stony soil, the climate of the intertropical regions alone could produce a vigorous vegetation. On some of the smaller islets, nothing could be more elegant than the manner in which the young and full-grown cocoa-nut trees, without destroying each other’s symmetry, were mingled into one wood. A beach of glittering white sand formed a border to these fairy spots.     4   
   
  I will now give a sketch of the natural history of these islands, which, from its very paucity, possesses a peculiar interest. The cocoa-nut tree, at the first glance, seems to compose the whole wood; there are, however, five or six other trees. One of these grows to a very large size, but from the extreme softness of its wood, is useless; another sort affords excellent timber for ship-building. Besides the trees, the number of plants is exceedingly limited, and consists of insignificant weeds. In my collection, which includes, I believe, nearly the perfect Flora, there are twenty species, without reckoning a moss, lichen, and fungus. To this number two trees must be added; one of which was not in flower, and the other I only heard of. The latter is a solitary tree of its kind, and grows near the beach, where, without doubt, the one seed was thrown up by the waves. A Guilandina also grows on only one of the islets. I do not include in the above list the sugar-cane, banana, some other vegetables, fruit-trees, and imported grasses. As the islands consist entirely of coral, and at one time must have existed as mere water-washed reefs, all their terrestrial productions must have been transported here by the waves of the sea. In accordance with this, the Florula has quite the character of a refuge for the destitute: Professor Henslow informs me that of the twenty species nineteen belong to different genera, and these again to no less than sixteen families! 1     5   
  In Holman’s 2 Travels an account is given, on the authority of Mr. A. S. Keating, who resided twelve months on these islands, of the various seeds and other bodies which have been known to have been washed on shore. “Seeds and plants from Sumatra and Java have been driven up by the surf on the windward side of the islands. Among them have been found the Kimiri, native of Sumatra and the peninsula of Malacca; the cocoa-nut of Balci, known by its shape and size; the Dadass, which is planted by the Malays with the pepper-vine, the latter intwining round its trunk, and supporting itself by the prickles on its stem; the soap-tree; the castor-oil plant; trunks of the sago palm; and various kinds of seeds unknown to the Malays settled on the islands. These are all supposed to have been driven by the N. W. monsoon to the coast of New Holland, and thence to these islands by the S. E. trade-wind. Large masses of Java teak and Yellow wood have also been found, besides immense trees of red and white cedar, and the blue gumwood of New Holland, in a perfectly sound condition. All the hardy seeds, such as creepers, retain their germinating power, but the softer kinds, among which is the mangostin, are destroyed in the passage. Fishing-canoes, apparently from Java, have at times been washed on shore.” It is interesting thus to discover how numerous the seeds are, which, coming from several countries, are drifted over the wide ocean. Professor Henslow tells me, he believes that nearly all the plants which I brought from these islands, are common littoral species in the East Indian archipelago. From the direction, however, of the winds and currents, it seems scarcely possible that they could have come here in a direct line. If, as suggested with much probability by Mr. Keating, they were first carried towards the coast of New Holland, and thence drifted back together with the productions of that country, the seeds, before germinating, must have travelled between 1800 and 2400 miles.     6   
  Chamisso, 3 when describing the Radack Archipelago, situated in the western part of the Pacific, states that “the sea brings to these islands the seeds and fruits of many trees, most of which have yet not grown here. The greater part of these seeds appear to have not yet lost the capability of growing.”     7   
  It is also said that palms and bamboos from somewhere in the torrid zone, and trunks of northern firs, are washed on shore: these firs must have come from an immense distance. These facts are highly interesting. It cannot be doubted that if there were landbirds to pick up the seeds when first cast on shore, and a soil better adapted for their growth than the loose blocks of coral, that the most isolated of the lagoon-islands would in time possess a far more abundant Flora than they now have.     8   
  The list of land animals is even poorer than that of the plants. Some of the islets are inhabited by rats, which were brought in a ship from the Mauritius, wrecked here. These rats are considered by Mr. Waterhouse as identical with the English kind, but they are smaller, and more brightly coloured. There are no true land-birds, for a snipe and a rail (Rallus Phillippensis), though living entirely in the dry herbage, belong to the order of Waders. Birds of this order are said to occur on several of the small low islands in the Pacific. At Ascension, where there is no land-bird, a rail (Porphyrio simplex) was shot near the summit of the mountain, and it was evidently a solitary straggler. At Tristan d’Acunha, where, according to Carmichael, there are only two land-birds, there is a coot. From these facts I believe that the waders, after the innumerable web-footed species, are generally the first colonists of small isolated islands. I may add, that whenever I noticed birds, not of oceanic species, very far out at sea, they always belonged to this order; and hence they would naturally become the earliest colonists of any remote point of land.     9   
  Of reptiles I saw only one small lizard. Of insects I took pains to collect every kind. Exclusive of spiders, which were numerous, there were thirteen species. 4 Of these, one only was a beetle. A small ant swarmed by thousands under the loose dry blocks of coral, and was the only true insect which was abundant. Although the productions of the land are thus scanty, if we look to the waters of the surrounding sea, the number of organic beings is indeed infinite. Chamisso has described 5 the natural history of a lagoon-island in the Radack Archipelago; and it is remarkable how closely its inhabitants, in number and kind, resemble those of Keeling Island. There is one lizard and two waders, namely, a snipe and curlew. Of plants there are nineteen species, including a fern; and some of these are the same with those growing here, though on a spot so immensely remote, and in a different ocean.     10   
  The long strips of land, forming the linear islets, have been raised only to that height to which the surf can throw fragments of coral, and the wind heap up calcareous sand. The solid flat of coral rock on the outside, by its breadth, breaks the first violence of the waves, which otherwise, in a day, would sweep away these islets and all their productions. The ocean and the land seem here struggling for mastery: although terra firma has obtained a footing, the denizens of the water think their claim at least equally good. In every part one meets hermit crabs of more than one species, 6 carrying on their backs the shells which they have stolen from the neighbouring beach. Overhead, numerous gannets, frigate-birds, and terns, rest on the trees; and the wood, from the many nests and from the smell of the atmosphere, might be called a sea-rookery. The gannets, sitting on their rude nests, gaze at one with a stupid yet angry air. The noddies, as their name expresses, are silly little creatures. But there is one charming bird: it is a small, snow-white tern, which smoothly hovers at the distance of a few feet above one’s head, its large black eye scanning, with quiet curiosity, your expression. Little imagination is required to fancy that so light and delicate a body must be tenanted by some wandering fairy spirit.     11   
  Sunday, April 3rd.—After service I accompanied Captain Fitz Roy to the settlement, situated at the distance of some miles, on the point of an islet thickly covered with tall cocoa-nut trees. Captain Ross and Mr. Liesk live in a large barn-like house open at both ends, and lined with mats made of woven bark. The houses of the Malays are arranged along the shore of the lagoon. The whole place had rather a desolate aspect, for there were no gardens to show the signs of care and cultivation. The natives belong to different islands in the East Indian archipelago, but all speak the same language: we saw the inhabitants of Borneo, Celebes, Java, and Sumatra. In colour they resemble the Tahitians, from whom they do not widely differ in features. Some of the women, however, show a good deal of the Chinese character. I liked both their general expressions and the sound of their voices. They appeared poor, and their houses were destitute of furniture; but it was evident, from the plumpness of the little children, that cocoa-nuts and turtle afford no bad sustenance.     12   
  On this island the wells are situated, from which ships obtain water. At first sight, it appears not a little remarkable that the fresh water should regularly ebb and flow with the tides; and it has even been imagined, that sand has the power of filtering the salt from the sea-water. These ebbing wells are common on some of the low islands in the West Indies. The compressed sand, or porous coral rock, is permeated like a sponge with the salt water; but the rain which falls on the surface must sink to the level of the surrounding sea, and must accumulate there, displacing an equal bulk of the salt water. As the water in the lower part of the great sponge-like coral mass rises and falls with the tides, so will the water near the surface; and this will keep fresh, if the mass be sufficiently compact to prevent much mechanical admixture; but where the land consists of great loose blocks of coral with open interstices, if a well be dug, the water, as I have seen, is brackish.     13   
  After dinner we stayed to see a curious half superstitious scene acted by the Malay women. A large wooden spoon dressed in garments, and which had been carried to the grave of a dead man, they pretend becomes inspired at the full of the moon, and will dance and jump about. After the proper preparations, the spoon, held by two women, became convulsed, and danced in good time to the song of the surrounding children and women. It was a most foolish spectacle; but Mr. Liesk maintained that many of the Malays believed in its spiritual movements. The dance did not commence till the moon had risen, and it was well worth remaining to behold her bright orb so quietly shining through the long arms of the cocoa-nut trees as they waved in the evening breeze. These scenes of the tropics are in themselves so delicious, that they almost equal those dearer ones at home, to which we are bound by each best feeling of the mind.     14   
  The next day I employed myself in examining the very interesting, yet simple structure and origin of these islands. The water being unusually smooth, I waded over the outer flat of dead rock as far as the living mounds of coral, on which the swell of the open sea breaks. In some of the gullies and hollows there were beautiful green and other coloured fishes, and the form and tints of many of the zoophytes were admirable. It is excusable to grow enthusiastic over the infinite numbers of organic beings with which the sea of the tropics, so prodigal of life, teems; yet I must confess I think those naturalists who have described, in well-known words, the submarine grottoes decked with a thousand beauties, have indulged in rather exuberant language.     15   
  April 6th.—I accompanied Captain Fitz Roy to an island at the head of the lagoon: the channel was exceedingly intricate, winding through fields of delicately branched corals. We saw several turtle and two boats were then employed in catching them. The water was so clear and shallow, that although at first a turtle quickly dives out of sight, yet in a canoe or boat under sail, the pursuers after no very long chase come up to it. A man standing ready in the bow, at this moment dashes through the water upon the turtle’s back; then clinging with both hands by the shell of its neck, he is carried away till the animal becomes exhausted and is secured. It was quite an interesting chase to see the two boats thus doubling about, and the men dashing head foremost into the water trying to seize their prey. Captain Moresby informs me that in the Chagos archipelago in this same ocean, the natives, by a horrible process, take the shell from the back of the living turtle. “It is covered with burning charcoal, which causes the outer shell to curl upwards; it is then forced off with a knife, and before it becomes cold flattened between boards. After this barbarous process the animal is suffered to regain its native element, where, after a certain time, a new shell is formed; it is, however, too thin to be of any service, and the animal always appears languishing and sickly.”     16   
  When we arrived at the head of the lagoon, we crossed a narrow islet, and found a great surf breaking on the windward coast. I can hardly explain the reason, but there is to my mind much grandeur in the view of the outer shores of these lagoon-islands. There is a simplicity in the barrier-like beach, the margin of green bushes and tall cocoa-nuts, the solid flat of dead coral-rock, strewed here and there with great loose fragments, and the line of furious breakers, all rounding away towards either hand. The ocean throwing its waters over the broad reef appears an invincible, all-powerful enemy; yet we see it resisted, and even conquered, by means which at first seem most weak and inefficient. It is not that the ocean spares the rock of coral; the great fragments scattered over the reef, and heaped on the beach, whence the tall cocoa-nut springs, plainly bespeak the unrelenting power of the waves. Nor are any periods of repose granted. The long swell caused by the gentle but steady action of the trade-wind, always blowing in one direction over a wide area, causes breakers, almost equalling in force those during a gale of wind in the temperate regions, and which never cease to rage. It is impossible to behold these waves without feeling a conviction that an island, though built of the hardest rock, let it be porphyry, granite, or quartz, would ultimately yield and be demolished by such an irresistible power. Yet these low, insignificant coral-islets stand and are victorious: for here another power, as an antagonist, takes part in the contest. The organic forces separate the atoms of carbonate of lime, one by one, from the foaming breakers, and unite them into a symmetrical structure. Let the hurricane tear up its thousand huge fragments; yet what will that tell against the accumulated labour of myriads of architects at work night and day, month after month? Thus do we see the soft and gelatinous body of a polypus, through the agency of the vital laws, conquering the great mechanical power of the waves of an ocean which neither the art of man nor the inanimate works of nature could successfully resist.     17   
  We did not return on board till late in the evening, for we stayed a long time in the lagoon, examining the fields of coral and the gigantic shells of the chama, into which, if a man were to put his hand, he would not, as long as the animal lived, be able to withdraw it. Near the head of the lagoon I was much surprised to find a wide area, considerably more than a mile square, covered with a forest of delicately branching corals, which, though standing upright, were all dead and rotten. At first I was quite at a loss to understand the cause; afterwards it occurred to me that it was owing to the following rather curious combination of circumstances. It should, however, first be stated, that corals are not able to survive even a short exposure in the air to the sun’s rays, so that their upward limit of growth is determined by that of lowest water at spring tides. It appears, from some old charts, that the long island to windward was formerly separated by wide channels into several islets; this fact is likewise indicated by the trees being younger on these portions. Under the former condition of the reef, a strong breeze, by throwing more water over the barrier, would tend to raise the level of the lagoon. Now it acts in a directly contrary manner; for the water within the lagoon not only is not increased by currents from the outside, but is itself blown outwards by the force of the wind. Hence it is observed, that the tide near the head of the lagoon does not rise so high during a strong breeze as it does when it is calm. This difference of level, although no doubt very small, has, I believe, caused the death of those coral-groves, which under the former and more open condition of the outer reef has attained the utmost possible limit of upward growth.     18   
  A few miles north of Keeling there is another small atoll, the lagoon of which is nearly filled up with coral-mud. Captain Ross found embedded in the conglomerate on the outer coast, a well rounded fragment of greenstone, rather larger than a man’s head: he and the men with him were so much surprised at this, that they brought it away and preserved it as a curiosity. The occurrence of this one stone, where every other particle of matter is calcareous, certainly is very puzzling. The island has scarcely ever been visited, nor is it probable that a ship had been wrecked there. From the absence of any better explanation, I came to the conclusion that it must have come entangled in the roots of some large tree: when, however, I considered the great distance from the nearest land, the combination of chances against a stone thus being entangled, the tree washed into the sea, floated so far, then landed safely, and the stone finally so embedded as to allow of its discovery, I was almost afraid of imagining a means of transport apparently so improbable. It was therefore with great interest that I found Chamisso, the justly distinguished naturalist who accompanied Kotzebue, stating that the inhabitants of the Radack archipelago, a group of lagoon-islands in the midst of the Pacific, obtained stones for sharpening their instruments by searching the roots of trees which are cast upon the beach. It will be evident that this must have happened several times, since laws have been established that such stones belong to the chief, and a punishment is inflicted on any one who attempts to steal them. When the isolated position of these small islands in the midst of a vast ocean-their great distance from any land excepting that of coral formation, attested by the value which the inhabitants, who are such bold navigators, attach to a stone of any kind, 7—and the slowness of the currents of the open sea, are all considered, the occurrence of pebbles thus transported does appear wonderful. Stones may often be thus carried; and if the island on which they are stranded is constructed of any other substance besides coral, they would scarcely attract attention, and their origin at least would never be guessed. Moreover, this agency may long escape discovery from the probability of trees, especially those loaded with stones, floating beneath the surface. In the channels of Tierra del Fuego large quantities of drift timber are cast upon the beach, yet it is extremely rare to meet a tree swimming on the water. These facts may possibly throw light on single stones, whether angular or rounded, occasionally found embedded in fine sedimentary masses.     19   
  During another day I visited West Islet, on which the vegetation was perhaps more luxuriant than on any other. The cocoa-nut trees generally grow separate, but here the young ones flourished beneath their tall parents, and formed with their long and curved fronds the most shady arbours. Those alone who have tried it, know how delicious it is to be seated in such shade, and drink the cool pleasant fluid of the cocoa-nut. In this island there is a large bay-like space, composed of the finest white sand: it is quite level and is only covered by the tide at high water; from this large bay smaller creeks penetrate the surrounding woods. To see a field of glittering white sand, representing water, with the cocoa-nut trees extending their tall and waving trunks around the margin, formed a singular and very pretty view.     20   
  I have before alluded to a crab which lives on the cocoa-nuts; it is very common on all parts of the dry land, and grows to a monstrous size: it is closely allied or identical with the Birgos latro. The front pair of legs terminate in very strong and heavy pincers, and the last pair are fitted with others weaker and much narrower. It would at first be thought quite impossible for a crab to open a strong cocoa-nut covered with the husk; but Mr. Liesk assures me that he has repeatedly seen this effected. The crab begins by tearing the husk, fibre by fibre, and always from that end under which the three eyeholes are situated; when this is completed, the crab commences hammering with its heavy claws on one of the eye-holes till an opening is made. Then turning round its body, by the aid of its posterior and narrow pair of pincers, it extracts the white albuminous substance. I think this is as curious a case of instinct as ever I heard of, and likewise of adaptation in structure between two objects apparently so remote from each other in the scheme of nature, as a crab and a cocoa-nut tree. The Birgos is diurnal in its habits; but every night it is said to pay a visit to the sea, no doubt for the purpose of moistening its branchiæ. The young are likewise hatched, and live for some time, on the coast. These crabs inhabit deep burrows, which they hollow out beneath the roots of trees; and where they accumulate surprising quantities of the picked fibres of the cocoa-nut husk, on which they rest as on a bed. The Malays sometimes take advantage of this, and collect the fibrous mass to use as junk. These crabs are very good to eat; moreover, under the tail of the larger ones there is a mass of fat, which, when melted, sometimes yields as much as a quart bottle full of limpid oil. It has been stated by some authors that the Birgos crawls up the cocoa-nut trees for the purpose of stealing the nuts: I very much doubt the possibility of this; but with the Pandanus 8 the task would be very much easier. I was told by Mr. Liesk that on these islands the Birgos lives only on the nuts which have fallen to the ground.     21   
  Captain Moresby informs me that this crab inhabits the Chagos and Seychelle groups, but not the neighbouring Maldiva archipelago. It formerly abounded at Mauritius, but only a few small ones are now found there. In the Pacific, this species, or one with closely allied habits, is said 9 to inhabit a single coral island, north of the Society group. To show the wonderful strength of the front pair of pincers, I may mention, that Captain Moresby confined one in a strong tin-box, which had held biscuits, the lid being secured with wire; but the crab turned down the edges and escaped. In turning down the edges, it actually punched many small holes quite through the tin!     22   
  I was a good deal surprised by finding two species of coral of the genus Millepora (M. complanata and alcicornis), possessed of the power of stinging. The stony branches or plates, when taken fresh from the water, have a harsh feel and are not slimy, although possessing a strong and disagreeable smell. The stinging property seems to vary in different specimens: when a piece was pressed or rubbed on the tender skin of the face or arm, a pricking sensation was usually caused, which came on after the interval of a second, and lasted only for a few minutes. One day, however, by merely touching my face with one of the branches, pain was instantaneously caused; it increased as usual after a few seconds, and remaining sharp for some minutes, was perceptible for half an hour afterwards. The sensation was as bad as that from a nettle, but more like that caused by the Physalia or Portuguese man-of-war. Little red spots were produced on the tender skin of the arm, which appeared as if they would have formed watery pustules, but did not. M. Quoy mentions this case of the Millepora; and I have heard of stinging corals in the West Indies. Many marine animals seem to have this power of stinging: besides the Portuguese man-of-war, many jelly-fish, and the Aplysia or seaslug of the Cape de Verd Islands, it is stated in the voyage of the Astrolabe, that an Actinia or sea-anemone, as well as a flexible coralline allied to Sertularia, both possess this means of offence or defence. In the East Indian sea, a stinging sea-weed is said to be found.     23   
  Two species of fish, of the genus Scarus, which are common here, exclusively feed on coral: both are coloured of a splendid bluish-green, one living invariably in the lagoon, and the other amongst the outer breakers. Mr. Liesk assured us, that he had repeatedly seen whole shoals grazing with their strong bony jaws on the tops of the coral branches: I opened the intestines of several, and found them distended with yellowish calcareous sandy mud. The slimy disgusting Holuthuriæ (allied to our star-fish), which the Chinese gourmands are so fond of, also feed largely, as I am informed by Dr. Allan, on corals; and the bony apparatus within their bodies seems well adapted for this end. These Holuthuriæ, the fish, the numerous burrowing shells, and nereidous worms, which perforate every block of dead coral, must be very efficient agents in producing the fine white mud which lies at the bottom and on the shores of the lagoon. A portion, however, of this mud, which when wet resembled pounded chalk, was found by Professor Ehrenberg to be partly composed of siliceous-shielded infusoria.     24   
  April 12th.—In the morning we stood out of the lagoon on our passage to the Isle of France. I am glad we have visited these islands: such formations surely rank high amongst the wonderful objects of this world. Captain Fitz Roy found no bottom with a line 7200 feet in length, at the distance of only 2200 yards from the shore; hence this island forms a lofty submarine mountain, with sides steeper even than those of the most abrupt volcanic cone. The saucer-shaped summit is nearly ten miles across; and every single atom, 10 from the least particle to the largest fragment of rock, in this great pile, which however is small compared with very many other lagoon-islands, bears the stamp of having been subjected to organic arrangement. We feel surprise when travellers tell us of the vast dimensions of the Pyramids and other great ruins, but how utterly insignificant are the greatest of these, when compared to these mountains of stone accumulated by the agency of various minute and tender animals! This is a wonder which does not at first strike the eye of the body, but, after reflection, the eye of reason.     25   
  I will now give a very brief account of the three great classes of coral-reefs; namely, Atolls, Barrier, and Fringing-reefs, and will explain my views 11 on their formation. Almost every voyager who has crossed the Pacific has expressed his unbounded astonishment at the lagoon-islands, or as I shall for the future call them by their Indian name of atolls, and has attempted some explanation. Even as long ago as the year 1605, Pyrard de Laval well exclaimed, “C’est une merveille de voir chacun de ces atollons, environné d’un grand banc de pierre tout autour, n’y ayant point d’artifice humain.” The accompanying sketch of Whitsunday Island in the Pacific, copied from Capt. Beechey’s admirable Voyage, gives but a faint idea of the singular aspect of an atoll: it is one of the smallest size, and has its narrow islets united together in a ring. The immensity of the ocean, the fury of the breakers, contrasted with the lowness of the land and the smoothness of the bright green water within the lagoon, can hardly be imagined without having been seen.     26   
   
   
  The earlier voyagers fancied that the coral-building animals instinctively built up their great circles to afford themselves protection in the inner parts; but so far is this from the truth, that those massive kinds, to whose growth on the exposed outer shores the very existence of the reef depends, cannot live within the lagoon, where other delicately-branching kinds flourish. Moreover, on this view, many species of distinct genera and families are supposed to combine for one end; and of such a combination, not a single instance can be found in the whole of nature. The theory that has been most generally received is, that atolls are based on submarine craters; but when we consider the form and size of some, the number, proximity, and relative positions of others, this idea loses its plausible character: thus Suadiva atoll is 44 geographical miles in diameter in one line, by 34 miles in another line; Rimsky is 54 by 20 miles across, and it has a strangely sinuous margin; Bow atoll is 30 miles long, and on an average only 6 in width; Menchicoff atoll consists of three atolls united or tied together. This theory, moreover, is totally inapplicable to the northern Maldiva atolls in the Indian Ocean (one of which is 88 miles in length, and between 10 and 20 in breadth), for they are not bounded like ordinary atolls by narrow reefs, but by a vast number of separate little atolls; other little atolls rising out of the great central lagoon-like spaces. A third and better theory was advanced by Chamisso, who thought that from the corals growing more vigorously where exposed to the open sea, as undoubtedly is the case, the outer edges would grow up from the general foundation before any other part, and that this would account for the ring or cup-shaped structure. But we shall immediately see, that in this, as well as in the crater-theory, a most important consideration has been overlooked, namely, on what have the reef-building corals, which cannot live at a great depth, based their massive structures?     27   
  Numerous soundings were carefully taken by Captain Fitz Roy on the steep outside of Keeling atoll, and it was found that within ten fathoms, the prepared tallow at the bottom of the lead, invariably came up marked with the impression of living corals, but as perfectly clean as if it had been dropped on a carpet of turf; as the depth increased, the impressions became less numerous, but the adhering particles of sand more and more numerous, until at last it was evident that the bottom consisted of a smooth sandy layer: to carry on the analogy of the turf, the blades of grass grew thinner and thinner, till at last the soil was so sterile, that nothing sprang from it. From these observations, confirmed by many others, it may be safely inferred that the utmost depth at which corals can construct reefs is between 20 and 30 fathoms. Now there are enormous areas in the Pacific and Indian Ocean, in which every single island is of coral formation, and is raised only to that height to which the waves can throw up fragments, and the winds pile up sand. Thus Radack group of atolls is an irregular square, 520 miles long and 240 broad; the Low Archipelago is elliptic-formed, 840 miles in its longer, and 420 in its shorter axis: there are other small groups and single low islands between these two archipelagoes, making a linear space of ocean actually more than 4000 miles in length, in which not one single island rises above the specified height. Again, in the Indian Ocean there is a space of ocean 1500 miles in length, including three archipelagoes, in which every island is low and of coral formation. From the fact of the reef-building corals not living at great depths, it is absolutely certain that throughout these vast areas, wherever there is now an atoll, a foundation must have originally existed within a depth of from 20 to 30 fathoms from the surface. It is improbable in the highest degree that broad, lofty, isolated, steep-sided banks of sediment, arranged in groups and lines hundreds of leagues in length, could have been deposited in the central and profoundest parts of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, at an immense distance from any continent, and where the water is perfectly limpid. It is equally improbable that the elevatory forces should have uplifted throughout the above vast areas, innumerable great rocky banks within 20 to 30 fathoms, or 120 to 180 feet, of the surface of the sea, and not one single point above that level; for where on the whole surface of the globe can we find a single chain of mountains, even a few hundred miles in length, with their many summits rising within a few feet of a given level, and not one pinnacle above it? If then the foundations, whence the atoll-building corals sprang, were not formed of sediment, and if they were not lifted up to the required level, they must of necessity have subsided into it; and this at once solves the difficulty. For as mountain after mountain, and island after island, slowly sank beneath the water, fresh bases would be successively afforded for the growth of the corals. It is impossible here to enter into all the necessary details, but I venture to defy 12 any one to explain in any other manner how it is possible that numerous islands should be distributed throughout vast areas-all the islands being low-all being built of corals, absolutely requiring a foundation within a limited depth from the surface.     28   
  Before explaining how atoll-formed reefs acquire their peculiar structure, we must turn to the second great class, namely, Barrier-reefs. These either extend in straight lines in front of the shores of a continent or of a large island, or they encircle smaller islands; in both cases, being separated from the land by a broad and rather deep channel of water, analogous to the lagoon within an atoll. It is remarkable how little attention has been paid to encircling barrier-reefs; yet they are truly wonderful structures. The following sketch represents part of the barrier encircling the island of Bolabola in the Pacific, as seen from one of the central peaks. In this instance the whole line of reef has been converted into land; but usually a snow-white line of great breakers, with only here and there a single low islet crowned with cocoa-nut trees, divides the dark heaving waters of the ocean from the light-green expanse of the lagoon-channel. And the quiet waters of this channel generally bathe a fringe of low alluvial soil, loaded with the most beautiful productions of the tropics, and lying at the foot of the wild, abrupt, central mountains.     29   
  Encircling barrier-reefs are of all sizes, from three miles to no less than forty-four miles in diameter; and that which fronts one side, and encircles both ends, of New Caledonia, is 400 miles long. Each reef includes one, two, or several rocky islands of various heights; and in one instance, even as many as twelve separate islands. The reef runs at a greater or less distance from the included land; in the Society archipelago generally from one to three or four miles; but at Hogoleu the reef is 20 miles on the southern side, and 14 miles on the opposite or northern side, from the included islands. The depth within the lagoon-channel also varies much; from 10 to 30 fathoms may be taken as an average; but at Vanikoro there are spaces no less than 56 fathoms or 363 feet deep. Internally the reef either slopes gently into the lagoon-channel, or ends in a perpendicular wall sometimes between two and three hundred feet under water in height: externally the reef rises, like an atoll, with extreme abruptness out of the profound depths of the ocean. What can be more singular than these structures? We see an island, which may be compared to a castle situated on the summit of a lofty submarine mountain, protected by a great wall of coral-rock, always steep externally and sometimes internally, with a broad level summit, here and there breached by a narrow gateway, through which the largest ships can enter the wide and deep encircling moat.     30   
   
   
  As far as the actual reef of coral is concerned, there is not the smallest difference, in general size, outline, grouping, and even in quite trifling details of structure, between a barrier and an atoll. The geographer Balbi has well remarked, that an encircled island is an atoll with high land rising out of its lagoon; remove the land from within, and a perfect atoll is left.     31   
  But what has caused these reefs to spring up at such great distances from the shores of the included islands? It cannot be that the corals will not grow close to the land; for the shores within the lagoon-channel, when not surrounded by alluvial soil, are often fringed by living reefs; and we shall presently see that there is a whole class, which I have called Fringing Reefs from their close attachment to the shores both of continents and of islands. Again, on what have the reef-building corals, which cannot live at great depths, based their encircling structures? This is a great apparent difficulty, analogous to that in the case of atolls, which has generally been overlooked. It will be perceived more clearly by inspecting the above sections, which are real ones, taken in north and south lines, through the islands with their barrier-reefs, of Vanikoro, Gambier, and Maurua; and they are laid down, both vertically and horizontally, on the same scale of a quarter of an inch to a mile.     32   
   
   
1. Vanikoro. 2. Gambier Islands. 3. Maurua. The horizontal shading shows the barrier-reefs and lagoon-channels. The inclined shading above the level of the sea (AA) shows the actual form of the land; the inclined shading below this line, shows its probable prolongation under water.   
  It should be observed that the sections might have been taken in any direction through these islands, or through many other encircled islands, and the general features would have been the same. Now, bearing in mind that reef-building coral cannot live at a greater depth than from 20 to 30 fathoms, and that the scale is so small that the plummets on the right hand show a depth of 200 fathoms, on what are these barrier-reefs based? Are we to suppose that each island is surrounded by a collar-like submarine ledge of rock, or by a great bank of sediment, ending abruptly where the reef ends?     33   
  If the sea had formerly eaten deeply into the islands, before they were protected by the reefs, thus having left a shallow ledge round them under water, the present shores would have been invariably bounded by great precipices; but this is most rarely the case. Moreover, on this notion, it is not possible to explain why the corals should have sprung up, like a wall, from the extreme outer margin of the ledge, often leaving a broad space of water within, too deep for the growth of corals. The accumulation of a wide bank of sediment all round these islands, and generally widest where the included islands are smallest, is highly improbable, considering their exposed positions in the central and deepest parts of the ocean. In the case of the barrier-reef of New Caledonia, which extends for 150 miles beyond the northern point of the islands, in the same straight line with which it fronts the west coast, it is hardly possible to believe that a bank of sediment could thus have been straightly deposited in front of a lofty island, and so far beyond its termination in the open sea. Finally, if we look to other oceanic islands of about the same height and of similar geological constitution, but not encircled by coral-reefs, we may in vain search for so trifling a circumambient depth as 30 fathoms, except quite near to their shores; for usually land that rises abruptly out of water, as do most of the encircled and non-encircled oceanic islands, plunges abruptly under it. On what then, I repeat, are these barrier-reefs based? Why, with their wide and deep moat-like channels, do they stand so far from the included land? We shall soon see how easily these difficulties disappear.     34   
  We come now to our third class of Fringing-reefs, which will require a very short notice. Where the land slopes abruptly under water, these reefs are only a few yards in width, forming a mere ribbon or fringe round the shores: where the land slopes gently under the water the reef extends further, sometimes even as much as a mile from the land; but in such cases the soundings outside the reef always show that the submarine prolongation of the land is gently inclined. In fact, the reefs extend only to that distance from the shore, at which a foundation within the requisite depth from 20 to 30 fathoms is found. As far as the actual reef is concerned, there is no essential difference between it and that forming a barrier or an atoll: it is, however, generally of less width, and consequently few islets have been formed on it. From the corals growing more vigorously on the outside, and from the noxious effect of the sediment washed inwards, the outer edge of the reef is the highest part, and between it and the land there is generally a shallow sandy channel a few feet in depth. Where banks or sediments have accumulated near to the surface, as in parts of the West Indies, they sometimes become fringed with corals, and hence in some degree resemble lagoon-islands or atolls, in the same manner as fringing-reefs, surrounding gently sloping islands, in some degree resemble barrier-reefs.     35   
   
   
AA. Outer edges of the fringing-reef, at the level of the sea. BB. The shores of the fringed island. A´A´. Outer edges of the reef, after its upward growth during a period of subsidence, now converted into a barrier, with islets on it. B´B´. The shores of the now encircled island. CC. Lagoon-channel. N.B.–In this and the following woodcut, the subsidence of the land could be represented only by an apparent rise in the level of the sea.   
  No theory on the formation of coral-reefs can be considered satisfactory which does not include the three great classes. We have seen that we are driven to believe in the subsidence of those vast areas, interspersed with low islands, of which not one rises above the height to which the wind and waves can throw up matter, and yet are constructed by animals requiring a foundation, and that foundation to lie at no great depth. Let us then take an island surrounded by fringing-reefs, which offer no difficulty in their structure; and let this island with its reefs, represented by the unbroken lines in the woodcut, slowly subside. Now, as the island sinks down, either a few feet at a time or quite insensibly, we may safely infer, from what is known of the conditions favourable to the growth of coral, that the living masses, bathed by the surf on the margin of the reef, will soon regain the surface. The water, however, will encroach little by little on the shore, the island becoming lower and smaller, and the space between the inner edge of the reef and the beach proportionately broader. A section of the reef and island in this state, after a subsidence of several hundred feet, is given by the dotted lines. Coral islets are supposed to have been formed on the reef; and a ship is anchored in the lagoon-channel. This channel will be more or less deep, according to the rate of subsidence, to the amount of sediment accumulated in it, and to the growth of the delicately branched corals which can live there. The section in this state resembles in every respect one drawn through an encircled island: in fact, it is a real section (on the scale of .517 of an inch to a mile) through Bolabola in the Pacific. We can now at once see why encircling barrier-reefs stand so far from the shores which they front. We can also perceive, that a line drawn perpendicularly down from the outer edge of the new reef, to the foundation of solid rock beneath the old fringing-reef, will exceed by as many feet as there have been feet of subsidence, that small limit of depth at which the effective corals can live:—the little architects having built up their great wall-like mass, as the whole sank down, upon a basis formed of other corals and their consolidated fragments. Thus the difficulty on this head, which appeared so great, disappears.     36   
  If, instead of an island, we had taken the shore of a continent fringed with reefs, and had imagined it to have subsided, a great straight barrier, like that of Australia or New Caledonia, separated from the land by a wide and deep channel, would evidently have been the result.     37   
  Let us take our new encircling barrier-reef, of which the section is now represented by unbroken lines, and which, as I have said, is a real section through Bolabola, and let it go on subsiding. As the barrier-reef slowly sinks down, the corals will go on vigorously growing upwards; but as the island sinks, the water will gain inch by inch on the shore—the separate mountains first forming separate islands within one great reef—and finally, the last and highest pinnacle disappearing. The instant this takes place, a perfect atoll is formed: I have said, remove the high land from within an encircling barrier-reef, and an atoll is left, and the land has been removed. We can now perceive how it comes that atolls, having sprung from encircling barrier reefs, resemble them in general size, form, in the manner in which they are grouped together, and in their arrangement in single or double lines; for they may be called rude outline charts of the sunken islands over which they stand. We can further see how it arises that the atolls in the Pacific and Indian Oceans extend in lines parallel to the generally prevailing strike of the high islands and great coast-lines of those oceans. I venture, therefore, to affirm, that on the theory of the upward growth of the corals during the sinking of the land, 13 all the leading features in those wonderful structures, the lagoon-islands or atolls, which have so long excited the attention of voyagers, as well as in the no less wonderful barrier-reefs, whether encircling small islands or stretching for hundreds of miles along the shores of a continent, are simply explained.     38   
   
   
A´A´. Outer edges of the barrier-reef at the level of the sea, with islets on it. B´B´. The shores of the included island. CC. The lagoon-channel. A´´A´´. Outer edges of the reef, now converted intol an atoll. C´. The lagoon of the new atoll. N.B.–According to the true scale, the depths of the lagoon-channel and lagoon are much exaggerated.   
  It may be asked, whether I can offer any direct evidence of the subsidence of barrier-reefs or atolls; but it must be borne in mind how difficult it must ever be to detect a movement, the tendency of which is to hide under water the part affected. Nevertheless, at Keeling atoll I observed on all sides of the lagoon old cocoa-nut trees undermined and falling; and in one place the foundation-posts of a shed, which the inhabitants asserted had stood seven years before just above high-water mark, but now was daily washed by every tide: on inquiry I found that three earthquakes, one of them severe, had been felt here during the last ten years. At Vanikoro, the lagoon-channel is remarkably deep, scarcely any alluvial soil has accumulated at the foot of the lofty included mountains, and remarkably few islets have been formed by the heaping of fragments and sand on the wall-like barrier reef; these facts, and some analogous ones, led me to believe that this island must lately have subsided and the reef grown upwards: here again earthquakes are frequent and very severe. In the Society archipelago, on the other hand, where the lagoon-channels are almost choked up, where much low alluvial land has accumulated, and where in some cases long islets have been formed on the barrier-reefs—facts all showing that the islands have not very lately subsided—only feeble shocks are most rarely felt. In these coral formations, where the land and water seem struggling for mastery, it must be ever difficult to decide between the effects of a change in the set of the tides and of a slight subsidence: that many of these reefs and atolls are subject to changes of some kind is certain; on some atolls the islets appear to have increased greatly within a late period; on others they have been partially or wholly washed away. The inhabitants of parts of the Maldiva archipelago know the date of the first formation of some islets; in other parts, the corals are now flourishing on water-washed reefs, where holes made for graves attest the former existence of inhabited land. It is difficult to believe in frequent changes in the tidal currents of an open ocean; whereas, we have in the earthquakes recorded by the natives on some atolls, and in the great fissures observed on other atolls, plain evidence of changes and disturbances in progress in the subterranean regions.     39   
  It is evident, on our theory, that coasts merely fringed by reefs cannot have subsided to any perceptible amount; and therefore they must, since the growth of their corals, either have remained stationary or have been upheaved. Now, it is remarkable how generally it can be shown, by the presence of upraised organic remains, that the fringed islands have been elevated: and so far, this is indirect evidence in favour of our theory. I was particularly struck with this fact, when I found, to my surprise, that the descriptions given by MM. Quoy and Gaimard were applicable, not to reefs in general as implied by them, but only to those of the fringing class; my surprise, however, ceased when I afterwards found that, by a strange chance, all the several islands visited by these eminent naturalists, could be shown by their own statements to have been elevated within a recent geological era.     40   
  Not only the grand features in the structure of barrier-reefs and of atolls, and to their likeness to each other in form, size, and other characters, are explained on the theory of subsidence—which theory we are independently force to admit in the very areas in question, from the necessity of finding bases for the corals within the requisite depth—but many details in structure and exceptional cases can thus also be simply explained. I will give only a few instances. In barrier-reefs it has long been remarked with surprise, that the passages through the reef exactly face valleys in the included land, even in cases where the reef is separated from the land by a lagoon-channel so wide and so much deeper than the actual passage itself, that it seems hardly possible that the very small quantity of water or sediment brought down could injure the corals on the reef. Now, every reef of the fringing class is breached by a narrow gateway in front of the smallest rivulet, even if dry during the greater part of the year, for the mud, sand, or gravel, occasionally washed down kills the corals on which it is deposited. Consequently, when an island thus fringed subsides, though most of the narrow gateways will probably become closed by the outward and upward growth of the corals, yet any that are not closed (and some must always be kept open by the sediment and impure water flowing out of the lagoon-channel) will still continue to front exactly the upper parts of those valleys, at the mouths of which the original basal fringing-reef was breached.     41   
  We can easily see how an island fronted only on one side, or on one side with one end or both ends encircled by barrier-reefs, might after long-continued subsidence be converted either into a single wall-like reef, or into an atoll with a great straight spur projecting from it, or into two or three atolls tied together by straight reefs—all of which exceptional cases actually occur. As the reef-building corals require food, are preyed upon by other animals, are killed by sediment, cannot adhere to a loose bottom, and may be easily carried down to a depth whence they cannot spring up again, we need feel no surprise at the reefs both of atolls and barriers becoming in parts imperfect. The great barrier of New Caledonia is thus imperfect and broken in many parts; hence, after long subsidence, this great reef would not produce one great atoll 400 miles in length, but a chain or archipelago of atolls, of very nearly the same dimension with those in the Maldiva archipelago. Moreover, in an atoll once breached on opposite sides, from the likelihood of the oceanic and tidal currents passing straight through the breaches, it is extremely improbable that the corals, especially during continued subsidence, would ever be able again to unite the rim; if they did not, as the whole sank downwards, one atoll would be divided into two or more. In the Maldiva archipelago there are distinct atolls so related to each other in position, and separated by channels either unfathomable or very deep (the channel between Ross and Ari atolls is 150 fathoms, and that between the north and south Nillandoo atolls is 200 fathoms in depth), that it is impossible to look at a map of them without believing that they were once more intimately related. And in this same archipelago, Mahlos-Mahdoo atoll is divided by a bifurcating channel from 100 to 132 fathoms in depth, in such a manner, that it is scarcely possible to say whether it ought strictly to be called three separate atolls, or one great atoll not yet finally divided.     42   
  I will not enter on many more details; but I must remark that the curious structure of the northern Maldiva atolls receives (taking into consideration the free entrance of the sea through their broken margins) a simple explanation in the upward and outward growth of the corals, originally based both on small detached reefs in their lagoons, such as occur in common atolls, and on broken portions of the linear marginal reef, such as bounds every atoll of the ordinary form. I cannot refrain from once again remarking on the singularity of these complex structures—a great sandy and generally concave disk rises abruptly from the unfathomable ocean, with its central expanse studded, and its edge symmetrically bordered with oval basins of coral-rock just lipping the surface of the sea, sometimes clothed with vegetation, and each containing a lake of clear water!     43   
  One more point in detail: as in the two neighbouring archipelagoes corals flourish in one and not in the other, and as so many conditions before enumerated must affect their existence, it would be an inexplicable fact if, during the changes to which earth, air, and water are subjected, the reef-building corals were to keep alive for perpetuity on any one spot or area. And as by our theory the areas including atolls and barrier-reefs are subsiding, we ought occasionally to find reefs both dead and submerged. In all reefs, owing to the sediment being washed out of the lagoon-channel to leeward, that side is least favourable to the long-continued vigorous growth of the corals; hence dead portions of reef not unfrequently occur on the leeward side; and these, though still retaining their proper wall-like form, are now in several instances sunk several fathoms beneath the surface. The Chagos group appears from some cause, possibly from the subsidence having been too rapid, at present to be much less favourably circumstanced for the growth of reefs than formerly: one atoll has a portion of its marginal reef, nine miles in length, dead and submerged; a second has only a few quite small living points which rise to the surface; a third and fourth are entirely dead and submerged; a fifth is a mere wreck, with its structure almost obliterated. It is remarkable that in all these cases, the dead reefs and portions of reef lie at nearly the same depth, namely, from six to eight fathoms beneath the surface, as if they had been carried down by one uniform movement. One of these “half-drowned atolls,” so called by Capt. Moresby (to whom I am indebted for much invaluable information), is of vast size, namely, ninety nautical miles across in one direction, and seventy miles in another line; and is in many respects eminently curious. As by our theory it follows that new atolls will generally be formed in each new area of subsidence, two weighty objections might have been raised, namely, that atolls must be increasing indefinitely in number; and secondly, that in old areas of subsidence each separate atoll must be increasing indefinitely in thickness, if proofs of their occasional destruction could not have been adduced. Thus have we traced the history of these great rings of coral-rock, from their first origin through their normal changes, and through the occasional accidents of their existence, to their death and final obliteration.     44   
   
  In my volume on “Coral Formations” I have published a map, in which I have coloured all the atolls dark-blue, the barrier-reefs pale-blue, and the fringing reefs red. These latter reefs have been formed whilst the land has been stationary, or, as appears from the frequent presence of upraised organic remains, whilst it has been slowly rising: atolls and barrier-reefs, on the other hand, have grown up during the directly opposite movement of subsidence, which movement must have been very gradual, and in the case of atolls so vast in amount as to have buried every mountain-summit over wide ocean-spaces. Now in this map we see that the reefs tinted pale and dark-blue, which have been produced by the same order of movement, as a general rule manifestly stand near each other. Again we see, that the areas with the two blue tints are of wide extent; and that they lie separate from extensive lines of coast coloured red, both of which circumstances might naturally have been inferred, on the theory of the nature of the reefs having been governed by the nature of the earth’s movement. It deserves notice, that in more than one instance where single red and blue circles approach near each other, I can show that there have been oscillations of level; for in such cases the red or fringed circles consist of atolls, originally by our theory formed during subsidence, but subsequently upheaved; and on the other hand, some of the pale-blue or encircled islands are composed of coral-rock, which must have been uplifted to its present height before that subsidence took place, during which the existing barrier-reefs grew upwards.     45   
  Authors have noticed with surprise, that although atolls are the commonest coral-structures throughout some enormous oceanic tracts, they are entirely absent in other seas, as in the West Indies: we can now at once perceive the cause, for where there has not been subsidence, atolls cannot have been formed; and in the case of the West Indies and parts of the East Indies, these tracts are known to have been rising within the recent period. The larger areas, coloured red and blue, are all elongated; and between the two colours there is a degree of rude alternation, as if the rising of one had balanced the sinking of the other. Taking into consideration the proofs of recent elevation both on the fringed coasts and on some others (for instance, in South America) where there are no reefs, we are led to conclude that the great continents are for the most part rising areas: and from the nature of the coral-reefs, that the central parts of the great oceans are sinking areas. The East Indian archipelago, the most broken land in the world, is in most parts an area of elevation, but surrounded and penetrated, probably in more lines than one, by narrow areas of subsidence.     46   
  I have marked with vermilion spots all the many known active volcanos within the limits of this same map. Their entire absence from every one of the great subsiding areas, coloured either pale or dark blue, is most striking and not less so is the coincidence of the chief volcanic chains with the parts coloured red, which we are led to conclude have either long remained stationary, or more generally have been recently upraised. A

The Voyage of the Beagle
    
Chapter XXI   
    
    
Mauritius, beautiful appearance of—Great crateriform ring of Mountains—Hindoos—St. Helena—History of the changes in the Vegetation—Cause of the extinction of Land-shells—Ascension—Variation in the imported Rats—Volcanic Bombs—Beds of Infusoria—Bahia—Brazil—Splendour of Tropical Scenery—Pernambuco—Singular Reef—Slavery—Return to England—Retrospect on our Voyage   
    
    
APRIL 29th.—In the morning we passed round the northern end of Mauritius, or the Isle of France. From this point of view the aspect of the island equalled the expectations raised by the many well-known descriptions of its beautiful scenery. The sloping plain of the Pamplemousses, interspersed with houses, and coloured by the large fields of sugar-cane of a bright green, composed the foreground. The brilliancy of the green was the more remarkable because it is a colour which generally is conspicuous only from a very short distance. Towards the centre of the island groups of wooded mountains rose out of this highly cultivated plain; their summits, as so commonly happens with ancient volcanic rocks, being jagged into the sharpest points. Masses of white clouds were collected around these pinnacles, as if for the sake of pleasing the stranger’s eye. The whole island, with its sloping border and central mountains, was adorned with an air of perfect elegance: the scenery, if I may use such an expression, appeared to the sight harmonious.     1   
  I spent the greater part of the next day in walking about the town and visiting different people. The town is of considerable size, and is said to contain 20,000 inhabitants; the streets are very clean and regular. Although the island has been so many years under the English Government, the general character of the place is quite French: Englishmen speak to their servants in French, and the shops are all French; indeed, I should think that Calais or Boulogne was much more Anglified. There is a very pretty little theatre, in which operas are excellently performed. We were also surprised at seeing large booksellers’ shops, with well-stored shelves;—music and reading bespeak our approach to the old world of civilization; for in truth both Australia and America are new worlds.     2   
  The various races of men walking in the streets afford the most interesting spectacle in Port Louis. Convicts from India are banished here for life; at present there are about 800, and they are employed in various public works. Before seeing these people, I had no idea that the inhabitants of India were such noble-looking figures. Their skin is extremely dark, and many of the older men had large mustaches and beards of a snow-white colour; this, together with the fire of their expression, gave them quite an imposing aspect. The greater number had been banished for murder and the worst crimes; others for causes which can scarcely be considered as moral faults, such as for not obeying, from superstitious motives, the English laws. These men are generally quiet and well-conducted ; from their outward conduct, their cleanliness, and faithful observance of their strange religious rites, it was impossible to look at them with the same eyes as on our wretched convicts in New South Wales.     3   
  May 1st.—Sunday. I took a quiet walk along the sea-coast to the north of the town. The plain in this part is quite uncultivated; it consists of a field of black lava, smoothed over with coarse grass and bushes, the latter being chiefly Mimosas. The scenery may be described as intermediate in character between that of the Galapagos and of Tahiti; but this will convey a definite idea to very few persons. It is a very pleasant country, but it has not the charms of Tahiti, or the grandeur of Brazil. The next day I ascended La Pouce, a mountain so called from a thumb-like projection, which rises close behind the town to a height of 2,600 feet. The centre of the island consists of a great platform, surrounded by old broken basaltic mountains, with their strata dipping seawards. The central platform, formed of comparatively recent streams of lava, is of an oval shape, thirteen geographical miles across, in the line of its shorter axis. The exterior bounding mountains come into that class of structures called Craters of Elevation, which are supposed to have been formed not like ordinary craters, but by a great and sudden upheaval. There appears to me to be insuperable objections to this view: on the other hand, I can hardly believe, in this and in some other cases, that these marginal crateriform mountains are merely the basal remnants of immense volcanos, of which the summits either have been blown off, or swallowed up in subterranean abysses.     4   
  From our elevated position we enjoyed an excellent view over the island. The country on this side appears pretty well cultivated, being divided into fields and studded with farm-houses. I was, however, assured that of the whole land, not more than half is yet in a productive state; if such be the case, considering the present large export of sugar, this island, at some future period when thickly peopled, will be of great value. Since England has taken possession of it, a period of only twenty-five years, the export of sugar is said to have increased seventy-five fold. One great cause of its prosperity is the excellent state of the roads. In the neighbouring Isle of Bourbon, which remains under the French government, the roads are still in the same miserable state as they were here only a few years ago. Although the French residents must have largely profited by the increased prosperity of their island, yet the English government is far from popular.     5   
  3rd.—In the evening Captain Lloyd, the Surveyor-general, so well known from his examination of the Isthmus of Panama, invited Mr. Stokes and myself to his country-house, which is situated on the edge of Wilheim Plains, and about six miles from the Port. We stayed at this delightful place two days; standing nearly 800 feet above the sea, the air was cool and fresh, and on every side there were delightful walks. Close by, a grand ravine has been worn to a depth of about 500 feet through the slightly inclined streams of lava, which have flowed from the central platform.     6   
  5th.—Captain Lloyd took us to the Riviere Noire, which is several miles to the southward, that I might examine some rocks of elevated coral. We passed through pleasant gardens, and fine fields of sugarcane growing amidst huge blocks of lava. The roads were bordered by hedges of Mimosa, and near many of the houses there were avenues of the mango. Some of the views, where the peaked hills and the cultivated farms were seen together, were exceedingly picturesque; and were constantly tempted to exclaim, “How pleasant it would be to pass one’s life in such quiet abodes!” Captain Lloyd possessed an elephant, and he sent it half way with us, that we might enjoy a ride in true Indian fashion. The circumstance which surprised me most was its quite noiseless step. This elephant is the only one at present on the island; but it is said others will be sent for.     7   
    
  May 9th.—We sailed from Port Louis, and, calling at the Cape of Good Hope, on the 8th of July, we arrived off St. Helena. This island, the forbidding aspect of which has been so often described, rises abruptly like a huge black castle from the ocean. Near the town, as if to complete nature’s defence, small forts and guns fill up every gap in the rugged rocks. The town runs up a flat and narrow valley; the houses look respectable, and are interspersed with a very few green trees. When approaching the anchorage there was one striking view: an irregular castle perched on the summit of a lofty hill, and surrounded by a few scattered fir-trees, boldly projected against the sky.     8   
  The next day I obtained lodgings within a stone’s throw of Napoleon’s tomb; 1 it was a capital central situation, whence I could make excursions in every direction. During the four days I stayed here, I wandered over the island from morning to night, and examined its geological history. My lodgings were situated at a height of about 2000 feet; here the weather was cold and boisterous, with constant showers of rain; and every now and then the whole scene was veiled in thick clouds.     9   
  Near the coast the rough lava is quite bare: in the central and higher parts, feldspathic rocks by their decomposition have produced a clayey soil, which, where not covered by vegetation, is stained in broad bands of many bright colours. At this season, the land moistened by constant showers, produces a singularly bright green pasture, which lower and lower down, gradually fades away and at last disappears. In latitude 16°, and at the trifling elevation of 1500 feet, it is surprising to behold a vegetation possessing a character decidedly British. The hills are crowned with irregular plantations of Scotch firs; and the sloping banks are thickly scattered over with thickets of gorse, covered with its bright yellow flowers. Weeping-willows are common on the banks of the rivulets, and the hedges are made of the blackberry, producing its well-known fruit. When we consider that the number of plants now found on the island is 746, and that out of these fifty-two alone are indigenous species, the rest having been imported, and most of them from England, we see the reason of the British character of the vegetation. Many of these English plants appear to flourish better than in their native country; some also from the opposite quarter of Australia succeed remarkably well. The many imported species must have destroyed some of the native kinds: and it is only on the highest and steepest ridges that the indigenous Flora is now predominant.     10   
  The English, or rather Welsh character of the scenery, is kept up by the numerous cottages and small white houses; some buried at the bottom of the deepest valleys, and others mounted on the crests of the lofty hills. Some of the views are striking, for instance that from near Sir W. Doveton’s house, where the bold peak called Lot is seen over a dark wood of firs, the whole being backed by the red water-worn mountains of the southern coast. On viewing the island from an eminence, the first circumstance which strikes one, is the number of the roads and forts: the labour bestowed on the public works, if one forgets its character as a prison, seems out of all proportion to its extent or value. There is so little level or useful land, that it seems surprising how so many people, about 5000, can subsist here. The lower orders, or the emancipated slaves, are I believe extremely poor: they complain of the want of work. From the reduction in the number of public servants, owing to the island having been given up by the East Indian Company, and the consequent emigration of many of the richer people, the poverty probably will increase. The chief food of the working class is rice with a little salt meat; as neither of these articles are the products of the island, but must be purchased with money, the low wages tell heavily on the poor people. Now that the people are blessed with freedom, a right which I believe they value fully, it seems probable that their numbers will quickly increase: if so, what is to become of the little state of St. Helena?     11   
  My guide was an elderly man, who had been a goatherd when a boy, and knew every step amongst the rocks. He was of a race many times crossed, and although with a dusky skin, he had not the disagreeable expression of a mulatto. He was a very civil, quiet old man, and such appears the character of the greater number of the lower classes. It was strange to my ears to hear a man, nearly white and respectably dressed, talking with indifference of the times when he was a slave. With my companion, who carried our dinners and a horn of water, which is quite necessary, as all the water in the lower valleys is saline, I every day took long walks.     12   
  Beneath the upper and central green circle, the wild valleys are quite desolate and untenanted. Here, to the geologist, there were scenes of high interest, showing successive changes and complicated disturbances. According to my views, St. Helena has existed as an island from a very remote epoch: some obscure proofs, however, of the elevation of the land are still extant. I believe that the central and highest peaks form parts of the rim of a great crater, the southern half of which has been entirely removed by the waves of the sea: there is, moreover, an external wall of black basaltic rocks, like the coast-mountains of Mauritius, which are older than the central volcanic streams. On the higher parts of the island, considerable numbers of a shell, long thought to be a marine species, occur imbedded in the soil.     13   
  It proved to be a Cochlogena, or land-shell of a very peculiar form; 2 with it I found six other kinds; and in another spot an eighth species. It is remarkable that none of them are now found living. Their extinction has probably been caused by the entire destruction of the woods, and the consequent loss of food and shelter, which occurred during the early part of the last century.     14   
  The history of the changes, which the elevated plains of Longwood and Deadwood have undergone, as given in General Beatson’s account of the island, is extremely curious. Both plains, it is said in former times were covered with wood, and were therefore called the Great Wood. So late as the year 1716 there were many trees, but in 1724 the old trees had mostly fallen; and as goats and hogs had been suffered to range about, all the young trees had been killed. It appears also from the official records, that the trees were unexpectedly, some years afterwards, succeeded by a wire grass which spread over the whole surface. 3 General Beatson adds that now this plain “is covered with fine sward, and is become the finest piece of pasture on the island.” The extent of surface, probably covered by wood at a former period, is estimated at no less than two thousand acres; at the present day scarcely a single tree can be found there. It is also said that in 1709 there were quantities of dead trees in Sandy Bay; this place is now so utterly desert, that nothing but so well attested an account could have made me believe that they could ever have grown there. The fact, that the goats and hogs destroyed all the young trees as they sprang up, and that in the course of time the old ones, which were safe from their attacks, perished from gate, seems clearly made out. Goats were introduced in the year 1502; eighty-six years afterwards, in the time of Cavendish, it is known that they were exceedingly numerous. More than a century afterwards, in 1731, when the evil was complete and irretrievable, an order was issued that all stray animals should be destroyed. It is very interesting thus to find, that the arrival of animals at St. Helena in 1501, did not change the whole aspect of the island, until a period of two hundred and twenty years had elapsed: for the goats were introduced in 1502, and in 1724 it is said “the old trees had mostly fallen.” There can be little doubt that this great change in the vegetation affected not only the land-shells, causing eight species to become extinct, but likewise a multitude of insects.     15   
  St. Helena, situated so remote from any continent, in the midst of a great ocean, and possessing a unique Flora, excites our curiosity. The eight land-shells, though now-extinct, and one living Succinea, are peculiar species found nowhere else. Mr. Cuming, however, informs me that an English Helix is common here, its eggs no doubt having been imported in some of the many introduced plants. Mr. Cuming collected on the coast sixteen species of sea-shells, of which seven, as far as he knows, are confined to this island. Birds and insects, 4 as might have been expected, are very few in number; indeed I believe all the birds have been introduced within late years. Partridges and pheasants are tolerably abundant; the island is much too English not to be subject to strict game-laws. I was told of a more unjust sacrifice to such ordinances than I ever heard of even in England. The poor people formerly used to burn a plant, which grows on the coast-rocks, and exports the soda from its ashes; but a peremptory order came out prohibiting this practice, and giving as a reason that the partridges would have nowhere to build.     16   
  In my walks I passed more than once over the grassy plain bounded by deep valleys, on which Longwood stands. Viewed from a short distance, it appears like a respectable gentleman’s country-seat. In front there are a few cultivated fields, and beyond them the smooth hill of coloured rocks called the Flagstaff, and the rugged square black mass of the Barn. On the whole the view was rather bleak and uninteresting. The only inconvenience I suffered during my walks was from the impetuous winds. One day I noticed a curious circumstance; standing on the edge of a plain, terminated by a great cliff of about a thousand feet in depth, I saw at the distance of a few yards right to windward, some tern, struggling against a very strong breeze, whilst, where I stood, the air was quite calm. Approaching close to the brink, where the current seemed to be deflected upwards from the face of the cliff, I stretched out my arm, and immediately felt the full force of the wind: an invisible barrier, two yards in width, separated perfectly calm air from a strong blast.     17   
  I so much enjoyed my rambles among the rocks and mountains of St. Helena, that I felt almost sorry on the morning of the 14th to descend to the town. Before noon I was on board, and the Beagle made sail.     18   
  On the 19th of July we reached Ascension. Those who have beheld a volcanic island, situated under an arid climate, will at once be able to picture to themselves the appearance of Ascension. They will imagine smooth conical hills of a bright red colour, with their summits generally truncated, rising separately out of a level surface of black rugged lava. A principal mound in the centre of the island, seems the father of the lesser cones. It is called Green Hill: its name being taken from the faintest tinge of that colour, which at this time of the year is barely perceptible from the anchorage. To complete the desolate scene, the black rocks on the coast are lashed by a wild and turbulent sea.     19   
  The settlement is near the beach; it consists of several houses and barracks placed irregularly, but well built of white freestone. The only inhabitants are marines, and some negroes liberated from slaveships, who are paid and victualled by government. There is not a private person on the island. Many of the marines appeared well contended with their situation; they think it better to serve their one-and-twenty years on shore, let it be what it may, than in a ship; in this choice, if I were a marine, I should most heartily agree.     20   
  The next morning I ascended Green Hill, 2840 feet high, and thence walked across the island to the windward point. A good cart-road leads from the coast-settlement to the houses, gardens, and fields, placed near the summit of the central mountain. On the road-side there are milestones, and likewise cisterns, where each thirsty passer-by can drink some good water. Similar care is displayed in each part of the establishment, and especially in the management of the springs, so that a single drop of water may not be lost: indeed the whole island may be compared to a huge ship kept in first-rate order. I could not help, when admiring the active industry, which had created such effects out of such means, at the same time regretting that it had been wasted on so poor and trifling an end. M. Lesson has remarked with justice, that the English nation would have thought of making the island of Ascension a productive spot; any other people would have held it as a mere fortress in the ocean.     21   
  Near this coast nothing grows; further inland, an occasional green castor-oil plant, and a few grasshoppers, true friends of the desert, may be met with. Some grass is scattered over the surface of the central elevated region, and the whole much resembles the worse parts of the Welsh mountains. But scanty as the pasture appears, about six hundred sheep, many goats, a few cows and horses, all thrive well on it. Of native animals, land-crabs and rats swarm in numbers. Whether the rat is really indigenous, may well be doubted; there are two varieties as described by Mr. Waterhouse; one is of a black colour, with fine glossy fur, and lives on the grassy summit; the other is brown-coloured and less glossy, with longer hairs, and lives near the settlement on the coast. Both these varieties are one-third smaller than the common black rat (M. rattus); and they differ from it both in the colour and character of their fur, but in no other essential respect. I can hardly doubt that these rats (like the common mouse, which has also run wild) have been imported, and, as at the Galapagos, have varied from the effect of the new conditions to which they have been exposed: hence the variety on the summit of the islands differs from that on the coast. Of native birds there are none; but the guinea-fowl, imported from the Cape de Verd Islands, is abundant, and the common fowl has likewise run wild. Some cats, which were originally turned out to destroy the rats and mice, have increased, so as to become a great plague. The island is entirely without trees, in which, and in every other respect, it is very far inferior to St. Helena.     22   
  One of my excursions took me towards the S. W. extremity of the island. The day was clear and hot, and I saw the island, not smiling with beauty, but staring with naked hideousness. The lava streams are covered with hummocks, and are rugged to a degree which, geologically speaking, is not of easy explanation. The intervening spaces are concealed with layers of pumice, ashes and volcanic tuff. Whilst passing this end of the island at sea, I could not imagine what the white patches were with which the whole plain was mottled; I now found that they were seafowl, sleeping in such full confidence, that even in midday a man could walk up and seize hold of them. These birds were the only living creatures I saw during the whole day. On the beach a great surf, although the breeze was light, came tumbling over the broken lava rocks.     23   
  The geology of this island is in many respects interesting. In several places I noticed volcanic bombs, that is, masses of lava which have been shot through the air whilst fluid, and have consequently assumed a spherical or pear-shape. Not only their external form, but, in several cases, their internal structure shows in a very curious manner that they have revolved in their aërial course. The internal structure of one of these bombs, when broken, is represented very accurately in the woodcut. The central part is coarsely cellular, the cells decreasing in size towards the exterior; where there is a shell-like case about the third of an inch in thickness, of compact stone, which again is overlaid by the outside crust of finely cellular lava. I think there can be little doubt, first that the external crust cooled rapidly in the state in which we now see it; secondly, that the still fluid lava within, was packed by the centrifugal force, generated by the revolving of the bomb, against the external cooled crust, and so produced the solid shell of stone; and lastly, that the centrifugal force, by relieving the pressure in the more central parts of the bomb, allowed the heated vapours to expand their cells, thus forming the coarse cellular mass of the centre.     24   
    
   
  A hill, formed of the older series of volcanic rocks, and which has been incorrectly considered as the crater of a volcano, is remarkable from its broad, slightly hollowed, and circular summit having been filled up with many successive layers of ashes and fine scoriæ. These saucer-shaped layers crop out on the margin, forming perfect rings of many different colours, giving to the summit a most fantastic appearance; one of these rings is white and broad, and resembles a course round which horses have been exercised; hence the hill has been called the Devil’s Riding School. I brought away specimens of one of the tufaceous layers of a pinkish colour and it is a most extraordinary fact, that Professor Ehrenberg 5 finds it almost wholly composed of matter which has been organized: he detects in it some siliceous-shielded fresh-water infusoria, and no less than twenty-five different kinds of the siliceous tissue of plants, chiefly of grasses. From the absence of all carbonaceous matter, Professor Ehrenberg believes that these organic bodies have passed through the volcanic fire, and have been erupted in the state in which we now see them. The appearance of the layers induced me to believe that they had been deposited under water, though from the extreme dryness of the climate I was forced to imagine, that torrents of rain had probably fallen during some great eruption, and that thus a temporary lake had been formed into which the ashes fell. But it may now be suspected that the lake was not a temporary one. Anyhow, we may feel sure, that at some former epoch the climate and productions of Ascension were very different from what they now are. Where on the face of the earth can we find a spot, on which close investigation will not discover signs of that endless cycle of change, to which this earth has been, is, and will be subjected?     25   
  On leaving Ascension, we sailed for Bahia, on the coast of Brazil, in order to complete the chronometrical measurement of the world. We arrived there on August 1st, and stayed four days, during which I took several long walks. I was glad to find my enjoyment in tropical scenery had not decreased from the want of novelty, even in the slightest degree. The elements of the scenery are so simple, that they are worth mentioning, as a proof on what trifling circumstances exquisite natural beauty depends.     26   
  The country may be described as a level plain of about three hundred feet in elevation, which in all parts has been worn into flat-bottomed valleys. This structure is remarkable in a granitic land, but is nearly universal in all those softer formations of which plains are usually composed. The whole surface is covered by various kinds of stately trees, interspersed with patches of cultivated ground, out of which houses, convents, and chapels arise. It must be remembered that within the tropics, the wild luxuriance of nature is not lost even in the vicinity of large cities: for the natural vegetation of the hedges and hill-sides overpowers in picturesque effect the artificial labour of man. Hence, there are only a few spots where the bright red soil affords a strong contrast with the universal clothing of green. From the edges of the plain there are distant views either of the ocean, or of the great Bay with its low-wooded shores, and on which numerous boats and canoes show their white sails. Excepting from these points, the scene is extremely limited; following the level pathways, on each hand, only glimpses into the wooded valleys below can be obtained. The houses I may add, and especially the sacred edifices, are built in a peculiar and rather fantastic style of architecture. They are all whitewashed; so that when illumined by the brilliant sun of midday, and as seen against the pale blue sky of the horizon, they stand out more like shadows than real buildings.     27   
  Such are the elements of the scenery, but it is a hopeless attempt to paint the general effect. Learned naturalists describe these scenes of the tropics by naming a multitude of objects, and mentioning some characteristic feature of each. To a learned traveller this possibly may communicate some definite ideas: but who else from seeing a plant in an herbarium can imagine its appearance when growing in its native soil? Who from seeing choice plants in a hothouse, can magnify some into the dimensions of forest trees, and crowd others into an entangled jungle? Who when examining in the cabinet of the entomologist the gay exotic butterflies, and singular cicadas, will associate with these lifeless objects, the ceaseless harsh music of the latter, and the lazy flight of the former,—the sure accompaniments of the still, glowing noonday of the tropics? It is when the sun has attained its greatest height, that such scenes should be viewed: then the dense splendid foliage of the mango hides the ground with its darkest shade, whilst the upper branches are rendered from the profusion of light of the most brilliant green. In the temperate zones the case is different—the vegetation there is not so dark or so rich, and hence the rays of the declining sun, tinged of a red, purple, or bright yellow color, add most to the beauties of those climes.     28   
  When quietly walking along the shady pathways, and admiring each successive view, I wished to find language to express my ideas. Epithet after epithet was found too weak to convey to those who have not visited the intertropical regions, the sensation of delight which the mind experiences. I have said that the plants in a hothouse fail to communicate a just idea of the vegetation, yet I must recur to it. The land is one great wild, untidy, luxuriant hothouse, made by Nature for herself, but taken possession of by man, who has studded it with gay houses and formal gardens. How great would be the desire in every admirer of nature to behold, if such were possible, the scenery of another planet! yet to every person in Europe, it may be truly said, that at the distance of only a few degrees from his native soil, the glories of another world are opened to him. In my last walk I stopped again and again to gaze on these beauties, and endeavoured to fix in my mind for ever, an impression which at the time I knew sooner or later must fail. The form of the orange-tree, the cocoa-nut, the palm, the mango, the tree-fern, the banana, will remain clear and separate; but the thousand beauties which unite these into one perfect scene must fade away: yet they will leave, like a tale heard in childhood, a picture full of indistinct, but most beautiful figures.     29   
  August 6th.—In the afternoon we stood out to sea, with the intention of making a direct course to the Cape de Verd Islands. Unfavourable winds, however, delayed us, and on the 12th we ran into Pernambuco,—a large city on the coast of Brazil, in latitude 8° south. We anchored outside the reef; but in a short time a pilot came on board and took us into the inner harbour, where we lay close to the town.     30   
  Pernambuco is built on some narrow and low sand-banks, which are separated from each other by shoal channels of salt water. The three parts of the town are connected together by two long bridges built on wooden piles. The town is in all parts disgusting, the streets being narrow, ill-paved, and filthy; the houses, tall and gloomy. The season of heavy rains had hardly come to an end, and hence the surrounding country, which is scarcely raised above the level of the sea, was flooded with water; and I failed in all my attempts to take walks.     31   
  The flat swampy land on which Pernambuco stands is surrounded, at the distance of a few miles, by a semicircle of low hills, or rather by the edge of a country elevated perhaps two hundred feet above the sea. The old city of Olinda stands on one extremity of this range. One day I took a canoe, and proceeded up one of the channels to visit it; I found the old town from its situation both sweeter and cleaner than that of Pernambuco. I must here commemorate what happened for the first time during our nearly five years’ wandering, namely, having met with a want of politeness. I was refused in a sullen manner at two different houses, and obtained with difficulty from a third, permission to pass through their gardens to an uncultivated hill, for the purpose of viewing the country. I feel glad that this happened in the land of the Brazilians, for I bear them no good will—a land also of slavery, and therefore of moral debasement. A Spaniard would have felt ashamed at the very thought of refusing such a request, or of behaving to a stranger with rudeness. The channel by which we went to and returned from Olinda, was bordered on each side by mangroves, which sprang like a miniature forest out of the greasy mud-banks. The bright green colour of these bushes always reminded me of the rank grass in a churchyard: both are nourished by putrid exhalations; the one speaks of death past, and the other too often of death to come.     32   
  The most curious object which I saw in this neighbourhood, was the reef that forms the harbour. I doubt whether in the whole world any other natural structure has so artificial an appearance. 6 It runs for a length of several miles in an absolutely straight line, parallel to, and not far distant from, the shore. It varies in width from thirty to sixty yards, and its surface is level and smooth; it is composed of obscurely stratified hard sandstone. At high water the waves break over it; at low water its summit is left dry, and it might then be mistaken for a breakwater erected by Cyclopean workmen. On this coast the currents of the sea tend to throw up in front of the land, long spits and bars of loose sand, and on one of these, part of the town of Pernambuco stands. In former times, a long spit of this nature seems to have become consolidated by the percolation of calcareous matter, and afterwards, to have been gradually upheaved; the outer and loose parts during this process having been worn away by the action of the sea, and the solid nucleus left as we now see it. Although night and day the waves of the open Atlantic, turbid with sediment, are driven against the steep outside edges of this wall of stone, yet the oldest pilots know of no tradition of any change in its appearance. This durability is much the most curious fact in its history: it is due to a tough layer, a few inches thick, of calcareous matter, wholly formed by the successive growth and death of the small shells of Serpulæ, together with some few barnacles and nulliporæ. These nulliporæ, which are hard, very simply-organized sea-plants, play an analogous and important part in protecting the upper surfaces of coral-reefs, behind and within the breakers, where the true corals, during the outward growth of the mass, become killed by exposure to the sun and air. These insignificant organic beings, especially the Serpulæ, have done good service to the people of Pernambuco; for without their protective aid the bar of sandstone would inevitably have been long ago worn away and without the bar, there would have been no harbour.     33   
  On the 19th of August we finally left the shores of Brazil, I thank God, I shall never again visit a slave-country. To this day, if I hear a distant scream, it recalls with painful vividness my feelings, when passing a house near Pernambuco, I heard the most pitiable moans, and could not but suspect that some poor slave was being tortured, yet knew that I was as powerless as a child even to remonstrate. I suspected that these moans were from a tortured slave, for I was told that this was the case in another instance. Near Rio de Janeiro I lived opposite to an old lady, who kept screws to crush the fingers of her female slaves. I have stayed in a house where a young household mulatto, daily and hourly, was reviled, beaten, and persecuted enough to break the spirit of the lowest animal. I have seen a little boy, six or seven years old, struck thrice with a horse-whip (before I could interfere) on his naked head, for having handed me a glass of water not quite clean; I saw his father tremble at a mere glance from his master’s eye. These latter cruelties were witnessed by me in a Spanish colony, in which it has always been said, that slaves are better treated than by the Portuguese, English, or other European nations. I have seen at Rio de Janeiro a powerful negro afraid to ward off a blow directed, as he thought, at his face. I was present when a kind-hearted man was on the point of separating forever the men, women, and little children of a large number of families who had long lived together. I will not even allude to the many heart-sickening atrocities which I authentically heard of; nor would I have mentioned the above revolting details, had I not met with several people, so blinded by the constitutional gaiety of the negro as to speak of slavery as a tolerable evil. Such people have generally visited at the houses of the upper classes, where the domestic slaves are usually well treated; land they have not, like myself, lived amongst the lower classes. Such inquirers will ask slaves about their condition; they forget that the slave must indeed be dull, who does not calculate on the chance of his answer reaching his master’s ears.     34   
  It is argued that self-interest will prevent excessive cruelty; as if self-interest protected our domestic animals, which are far less likely than degraded slaves, to stir up the rage of their savage masters. It is an argument long since protested against with noble feeling, and strikingly exemplified, by the ever-illustrious Humboldt. It is often attempted to palliate slavery by comparing the state of slaves with our poorer countrymen: if the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin; but how this bears on slavery, I cannot see; as well might the use of the thumb-screw be defended in one land, by showing that men in another land suffered from some dreadful disease. Those who look tenderly at the slave owner, and with a cold heart at the slave, never seem to put themselves into the position of the latter; what a cheerless prospect, with not even a hope of change! picture to yourself the chance, ever hanging over you, of you wife and your little children—those objects which nature urges even the slave to call his own—being torn from you and sold like beasts to the first bidder! And these deeds are done and palliated by men, who profess to love their neighbours as themselves, who believe in God, and pray that his Will be done on earth! It makes one’s blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty: but it is a consolation to reflect, that we at least have made a greater sacrifice, than ever made by any nation, to expiate our sin.     35   
    
  On the last day of August we anchored for the second time at Porto Praya in the Cape de Verd archipelago; thence we proceeded to the Azores, where we stayed six days, On the 2nd of October we made the shores of England; and at Falmouth I left the Beagle, having lived on board the good little vessel nearly five years.     36   
    
  Our Voyage having come to an end, I will take a short retrospect of the advantages and disadvantages, the pains and pleasures, of our circumnavigation of the world. If a person asked my advice, before undertaking a long voyage, my answer would depend upon his possessing a decided taste for some branch of knowledge, which could by this means be advanced. No doubt it is a high satisfaction to behold various countries and the many races of mankind, but the pleasures gained at the time do not counterbalance the evils. It is necessary to look forward to a harvest, however distant that may be, when some fruit will be reaped, some good effected.     37   
  Many of the losses which must be experienced are obvious; such as that of the society of every old friend, and of the sight of those places with which every dearest remembrance is so intimately connected. These losses, however, are at the time partly relieved by the exhaustless delight of anticipating the long wished-for day of return. If, as poets say, life is a dream, I am sure in a voyage these are the visions which best serve to pass away the long night. Other losses, although not at first felt, tell heavily after a period: these are the want of room, of seclusion, of rest; the jading feeling of constant hurry; the privation of small luxuries, the loss of domestic society and even of music and the other pleasures of imagination. When such trifles are mentioned, it is evident that the real grievances, excepting from accidents, of a sea-life are at an end. The short space of sixty years has made an astonishing difference in the facility of distant navigation. Even in the time of Cook, a man who left his fireside for such expeditions underwent severe privations. A yacht now, with every luxury of life, can circumnavigate the globe. Besides the vast improvements in ships and naval resources, the whole western shores of America are thrown open, and Australia has become the capital of a rising continent. How different are the circumstances to a man shipwrecked at the present day in the Pacific, to what they were in the time of Cook! Since his voyage a hemisphere has been added to the civilized world.     38   
  If a person suffer much from sea-sickness, let him weigh it heavily in the balance. I speak from experience: it is no trifling evil, cured in a week. If, on the other hand, he take pleasure in naval tactics, he will assuredly have full scope for his taste. But it must be borne in mind, how large a proportion of the time, during a long voyage, is spent on the water, as compared with the days in harbour. And what are the boasted glories of the illimitable ocean. A tedious waste, a desert of water, as the Arabian calls it. No doubt there are some delightful scenes. A moonlight night, with the clear heavens and the dark glittering sea, and the white sails filled by the soft air of a gently blowing trade-wind, a dead calm, with the heaving surface polished like a mirror, and all still except the occasional flapping of the canvas. It is well once to behold a squall with its rising arch and coming fury, or the heavy gale of wind and mountainous waves. I confess, however, my imagination had painted something more grand, more terrific in the full-grown storm. It is an incomparably finer spectacle when beheld on shore, where the waving trees, the wild flight of the birds, the dark shadows and bright lights, the rushing of the torrents all proclaim the strife of the unloosed elements. At sea the albatross and little petrel fly as if the storm were their proper sphere, the water rises and sinks as if fulfilling its usual task, the ship alone and its inhabitants seem the objects of wrath. On a forlorn and weather-beaten coast, the scene is indeed different, but the feelings partake more of horror than of wild delight.     39   
  Let us now look at the brighter side of the past time. The pleasure derived from beholding the scenery and the general aspect of the various countries we have visited, has decidedly been the most constant and highest source of enjoyment. It is probable that the picturesque beauty of many parts of Europe exceeds anything which we beheld. But there is a growing pleasure in comparing the character of the scenery in different countries, which to a certain degree is distinct from merely admiring its beauty. It depends chiefly on an acquaintance with the individual parts of each view. I am strongly induced to believe that as in music, the person who understands every note will, if he also possesses a proper taste, more thoroughly enjoy the whole, so he who examines each part of a fine view, may also thoroughly comprehend the full and combined effect. Hence, a traveller should be a botanist, for in all views plants form the chief embellishment. Group masses of naked rock, even in the wildest forms, and they may for a time afford a sublime spectacle, but they will soon grow monotonous. Paint them with bright and varied colours, as in Northern Chile, they will become fantastic; clothe them with vegetation, they must form a decent, if not a beautiful picture.     40   
  When I say that the scenery of parts of Europe is probably superior to anything which we beheld, I except, as a class by itself, that of the intertropical zones. The two classes cannot be compared together; but I have already often enlarged on the grandeur of those regions. As the force of impressions generally depends on preconceived ideas, I may add, that mine were taken from the vivid descriptions in the Personal Narrative of Humboldt, which far exceed in merit anything else which I have read. Yet with these high-wrought ideas, my feelings were far from partaking of a tinge of disappointment on my first and final landing on the shores of Brazil.     41   
  Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, none exceed in sublimity the primeval forests undefaced by the hand of man; whether those of Brazil, where the powers of Life are predominant, or those of Tierra del Fuego, where Death and Decay prevail. Both are temples filled with the varied productions of the God of Nature:—one can stand in these solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body. In calling up images of the past, I find that the plains of Patagonia frequently cross before my eyes; yet these plains are pronounced by all wretched and useless. They can be described only by negative characters; without habitations, without water, without trees, without mountains, they support merely a few dwarf plants. Why, then, and the case is not peculiar to myself, have these arid wastes taken so firm a hold on my memory? Why have not the still more level, the greener and more fertile Pampas, which are serviceable to mankind, produced an equal impression? I can scarcely analyze these feelings: but it must be partly owing to the free scope given to the imagination. The plains of Patagonia are boundless, for they are scarcely passable, and hence unknown: they bear the stamp of having lasted, as they are now, for ages, and there appears no limit to their duration through future time. If, as the ancients supposed, the flat earth was surrounded by an impassable breadth of water, or by deserts heated to an intolerable excess, who would not look at these last boundaries to man’s knowledge with deep but ill-defined sensations?     42   
  Lastly, of natural scenery, the views from lofty mountains, though certainly in one sense not beautiful, are very memorable. When looking down from the highest crest of the Cordillera, the mind, undisturbed by minute details, was filled with the stupendous dimensions of the surrounding masses.     43   
  Of individual objects, perhaps nothing is more certain to create astonishment than the first sight in his native haunt of a barbarian —of man in his lowest and most savage state. One’s mind hurries back over past centuries, and then asks, could our progenitors have been men like these? men, whose very signs and expressions are less intelligible to us than those of the domesticated animals; men, who do not possess the instinct of those animals, nor yet appear to boast of human reason, or at least of arts consequent on that reason. I do not believe it is possible to describe or paint the difference between savage and civilized man. It is the difference between a wild and tame animal: and part of the interest in beholding a savage, is the same which would lead every one to desire to see the lion in his desert, the tiger tearing his prey in the jungle, or the rhinoceros wandering over the wild plains of Africa.     44   
  Among the other most remarkable spectacles which we have beheld, may be ranked, the Southern Cross, the cloud of Magellan, and the other constellations of the southern hemisphere—the water-spout—the glacier leading its blue stream of ice, over-hanging the sea in a bold precipice—a lagoon island raised by the reef-building corals—an active volcano—and the overwhelming effects of a violent earthquake. These latter phenomena, perhaps, possess for me a peculiar interest, from their intimate connection with the geological structure of the world. The earthquake, however, must be to every one a most impressive event: the earth, considered from our earliest childhood as the type of solidity, has oscillated like a thin crust beneath our feet; and in seeing the laboured works of man in a moment overthrown, we feel the insignificance of his boasted power.     45   
  It has been said, that the love of the chase is an inherent delight in man—a relic of an instinctive passion. If so, I am sure the pleasure of living in the open air, with the sky for a roof and the ground for a table, is part of the same feeling; it is the savage returning to his wild and native habits. I always look back to our boat cruises, and my land journeys, when through unfrequented countries, with an extreme delight, which no scenes of civilization could have created. I do not doubt that every traveller must remember the glowing sense of happiness which he experienced, when he first breathed in a foreign clime, where the civilized man had seldom or never trod.     46   
  There are several other sources of enjoyment in a long voyage, which are of a more reasonable nature. The map of the world ceases to be a blank; it becomes a picture full of the most varied and animated figures. Each part assumes its proper dimensions: continents are not looked at in the light of islands, or islands considered as mere specks, which are, in truth, larger than many kingdoms of Europe. Africa, or North and South America, are well-sounding names, and easily pronounced; but it is not until having sailed for weeks along small portions of their shores, that one is thoroughly convinced what vast spaces on our immense world these names imply.     47   
  From seeing the present state, it is impossible not to look forward with high expectations to the future progress of nearly an entire hemisphere. The march of improvement, consequent on the introduction of Christianity throughout the South Sea, probably stands by itself in the records of history. It is the more striking when we remember that only sixty years since, Cook, whose excellent judgment none will dispute, could foresee no prospect of a change. Yet these changes have now been effected by the philanthropic spirit of the British nation.     48   
  In the same quarter of the globe Australia is rising, or indeed may be said to have risen, into a grand centre of civilization, which, at some not very remote period, will rule as empress over the southern hemisphere. It is impossible for an Englishman to behold these distant colonies, without a high pride and satisfaction. To hoist the British flag, seems to draw with it as a certain consequence, wealth, prosperity, and civilization.     49   
  In conclusion, it appears to me that nothing can be more improving to a young naturalist, than a journey in distant countries. It both sharpens, and partly allays that want and craving, which, as Sir. J. Herschel remarks, a man experiences although every corporeal sense be fully satisfied. The excitement from the novelty of objects, and the chance of success, stimulate him to increased activity. Moreover, as a number of isolated facts soon become uninteresting, the habit of comparison leads to generalization. On the other hand, as the traveller stays but a short time in each place, his descriptions must generally consist of mere sketches, instead of detailed observations. Hence arises, as I have found to my cost, a constant tendency to fill up the wide gaps of knowledge, by inaccurate and superficial hypotheses.     50   
  But I have too deeply enjoyed the voyage, not to recommend any naturalist, although he must not expect to be so fortunate in his companions as I have been, to take all chances, and to start, on travels by land if possible, if otherwise, on a long voyage. He may feel assured, he will meet with no difficulties or dangers, excepting in rare cases, nearly so bad as he beforehand anticipates. In a moral point of view, the effect ought to be, to teach him good-humoured patience, freedom from selfishness, the habit of acting for himself, and of making the best of every occurrence. In short, he ought to partake of the characteristic qualities of most sailors. Travelling ought also to teach him distrust; but at the same time he will discover, how many truly kind-hearted people there are, with whom he never before had, or ever again will have any further communication, who yet are ready to offer him the most disinterested assistance.     51   
    
Note 1. After the volumes of eloquence which have poured forth on this subject, it is dangerous even to mention the tomb. A modern traveller, in twelve lines, burdens the poor little island with the following titles,—it is a grave, tomb, pyramid, cemetery, sepulchre, catacomb, sarcophagus, minaret, and mausoleum!
Note 2. It deserves notice, that all the many specimens of this shell found by me in one spot, differ as a marked variety, from another set of specimens procured from a different spot.    
Note 3. Beatson’s St. Helena. Introductory chapter, p. 4.
Note 4. Among these few insects, I was surprised to find a small Aphodius (nov. spec.) and an Oryctes, both extremely numerous under dung. When the island was discovered it certainly possessed no quadruped, excepting perhaps a mouse; it becomes, therefore, a difficult point to ascertain, whether these stercovorous insects have since been imported by accident, or if aborigines, on what food they formerly subsisted. On the banks of the Plata, where, from the vast number of cattle and horses, the fine plains of turf are richly manured, it is vain to seek the many kinds of dung-feeding beetles, which occur so abundantly in Europe. I observed only an Oryctes (the insects of this genus in Europe generally feed on decayed vegetable matter) and two species of Phanæus, common in such situations. On the opposite side of the Cordillera in Chiloe, another species of Phanæus is exceedingly abundant, and it buries the dung of the cattle in large earthen balls beneath the ground. There is reason to believe that the genus Phanæus, before the introduction of cattle, acted as scavengers to man. In Europe, beetles, which find support in the matter which has already contributed towards the life of other and larger animals, are so numerous that there must be considerably more than one hundred different species. Considering this, and observing what a quantity of food of this kind is lost on the plains of La Plata, I imagined I saw an instance where man had disturbed that chain, by which so many animals are linked together in their native country. In Van Diemen’s Land, however, I found four species of Onthophagus, two of Aphodius, and one of a third genus, very abundantly under the dung of cows; yet these latter animals had been then introduced only thirty-three years. Previously to that time the kangaroo and some other small animals were the only quadrupeds; and their dung is of a very different quality from that of their successors introduced by man. In England the greater number of stercovorous beetles are confined in their appetites; that is, they do not depend indifferently on any quadruped for the means of subsistence. The change, therefore, in habits which must have taken place in Van Diemen’s Land is highly remarkable. I am indebted to the Rev. F. W. Hope, who, I hope, will permit me to call him my master in Entomology, for giving me the names of the foregoing insects. [back]   
Note 5. Monats. der König. Akad. d. Wiss. zu Berlin. Vom April, 1845. [back]   
Note 6. I have described this Bar in detail, in the Lond. and Edin. Phil Mag., vol. xix. (1841), p. 257.

Edited by his Son Francis Darwin


My father's autobiographical recollections, given in the present chapter, were written for his children,−−and
written without any thought that they would ever be published. To many this may seem an impossibility; but
those who knew my father will understand how it was not only possible, but natural. The autobiography bears
the heading, 'Recollections of the Development of my Mind and Character,' and end with the following
note:−−"Aug. 3, 1876. This sketch of my life was begun about May 28th at Hopedene (Mr. Hensleigh
Wedgwood's house in Surrey.), and since then I have written for nearly an hour on most afternoons." It will
easily be understood that, in a narrative of a personal and intimate kind written for his wife and children,
passages should occur which must here be omitted; and I have not thought it necessary to indicate where such
omissions are made. It has been found necessary to make a few corrections of obvious verbal slips, but the
number of such alterations has been kept down to the minimum.−−F.D.
A German Editor having written to me for an account of the development of my mind and character with
some sketch of my autobiography, I have thought that the attempt would amuse me, and might possibly
interest my children or their children. I know that it would have interested me greatly to have read even so
short and dull a sketch of the mind of my grandfather, written by himself, and what he thought and did, and
how he worked. I have attempted to write the following account of myself, as if I were a dead man in another
world looking back at my own life. Nor have I found this difficult, for life is nearly over with me. I have taken
no pains about my style of writing.
I was born at Shrewsbury on February 12th, 1809, and my earliest recollection goes back only to when I was a
few months over four years old, when we went to near Abergele for sea−bathing, and I recollect some events
and places there with some little distinctness.
My mother died in July 1817, when I was a little over eight years old, and it is odd that I can remember hardly
anything about her except her death−bed, her black velvet gown, and her curiously constructed work−table. In
the spring of this same year I was sent to a day−school in Shrewsbury, where I stayed a year. I have been told
that I was much slower in learning than my younger sister Catherine, and I believe that I was in many ways a
naughty boy.
By the time I went to this day−school (Kept by Rev. G. Case, minister of the Unitarian Chapel in the High
Street. Mrs. Darwin was a Unitarian and attended Mr. Case's chapel, and my father as a little boy went there
with his elder sisters. But both he and his brother were christened and intended to belong to the Church of
England; and after his early boyhood he seems usually to have gone to church and not to Mr. Case's. It
appears ("St. James' Gazette", Dec. 15, 1883) that a mural tablet has been erected to his memory in the chapel,
which is now known as the 'Free Christian Church.') my taste for natural history, and more especially for
collecting, was well developed. I tried to make out the names of plants (Rev. W.A. Leighton, who was a
schoolfellow of my father's at Mr. Case's school, remembers his bringing a flower to school and saying that
his mother had taught him how by looking at the inside of the blossom the name of the plant could be
discovered. Mr. Leighton goes on, "This greatly roused my attention and curiosity, and I enquired of him
repeatedly how this could be done?"−−but his lesson was naturally enough not transmissible.−−F.D.), and
collected all sorts of things, shells, seals, franks, coins, and minerals. The passion for collecting which leads a
man to be a systematic naturalist, a virtuoso, or a miser, was very strong in me, and was clearly innate, as
none of my sisters or brother ever had this taste.
One little event during this year has fixed itself very firmly in my mind, and I hope that it has done so from
my conscience having been afterwards sorely troubled by it; it is curious as showing that apparently I was
interested at this early age in the variability of plants! I told another little boy (I believe it was Leighton, who
afterwards became a well−known lichenologist and botanist), that I could produce variously coloured
polyanthuses and primroses by watering them with certain coloured fluids, which was of course a monstrous
fable, and had never been tried by me. I may here also confess that as a little boy I was much given to
inventing deliberate falsehoods, and this was always done for the sake of causing excitement. For instance, I
once gathered much valuable fruit from my father's trees and hid it in the shrubbery, and then ran in breathless
haste to spread the news that I had discovered a hoard of stolen fruit.
I must have been a very simple little fellow when I first went to the school. A boy of the name of Garnett took
me into a cake shop one day, and bought some cakes for which he did not pay, as the shopman trusted him.
When we came out I asked him why he did not pay for them, and he instantly answered, "Why, do you not
know that my uncle left a great sum of money to the town on condition that every tradesman should give
whatever was wanted without payment to any one who wore his old hat and moved [it] in a particular
manner?" and he then showed me how it was moved. He then went into another shop where he was trusted,
and asked for some small article, moving his hat in the proper manner, and of course obtained it without
payment. When we came out he said, "Now if you like to go by yourself into that cake−shop (how well I
remember its exact position) I will lend you my hat, and you can get whatever you like if you move the hat on
your head properly." I gladly accepted the generous offer, and went in and asked for some cakes, moved the
old hat and was walking out of the shop, when the shopman made a rush at me, so I dropped the cakes and ran
for dear life, and was astonished by being greeted with shouts of laughter by my false friend Garnett.
I can say in my own favour that I was as a boy humane, but I owed this entirely to the instruction and example
of my sisters. I doubt indeed whether humanity is a natural or innate quality. I was very fond of collecting
eggs, but I never took more than a single egg out of a bird's nest, except on one single occasion, when I took
all, not for their value, but from a sort of bravado.
I had a strong taste for angling, and would sit for any number of hours on the bank of a river or pond watching
the float; when at Maer (The house of his uncle, Josiah Wedgwood.) I was told that I could kill the worms
with salt and water, and from that day I never spitted a living worm, though at the expense probably of some
loss of success.
Once as a very little boy whilst at the day school, or before that time, I acted cruelly, for I beat a puppy, I
believe, simply from enjoying the sense of power; but the beating could not have been severe, for the puppy
did not howl, of which I feel sure, as the spot was near the house. This act lay heavily on my conscience, as is
shown by my remembering the exact spot where the crime was committed. It probably lay all the heavier from
my love of dogs being then, and for a long time afterwards, a passion. Dogs seemed to know this, for I was an
adept in robbing their love from their masters.
I remember clearly only one other incident during this year whilst at Mr. Case's daily school,−−namely, the
burial of a dragoon soldier; and it is surprising how clearly I can still see the horse with the man's empty boots
and carbine suspended to the saddle, and the firing over the grave. This scene deeply stirred whatever poetic
fancy there was in me.
In the summer of 1818 I went to Dr. Butler's great school in Shrewsbury, and remained there for seven years
still Midsummer 1825, when I was sixteen years old. I boarded at this school, so that I had the great advantage
of living the life of a true schoolboy; but as the distance was hardly more than a mile to my home, I very often
ran there in the longer intervals between the callings over and before locking up at night. This, I think, was in
many ways advantageous to me by keeping up home affections and interests. I remember in the early part of
my school life that I often had to run very quickly to be in time, and from being a fleet runner was generally
successful; but when in doubt I prayed earnestly to God to help me, and I well remember that I attributed my
success to the prayers and not to my quick running, and marvelled how generally I was aided.
I have heard my father and elder sister say that I had, as a very young boy, a strong taste for long solitary
walks; but what I thought about I know not. I often became quite absorbed, and once, whilst returning to
school on the summit of the old fortifications round Shrewsbury, which had been converted into a public
foot−path with no parapet on one side, I walked off and fell to the ground, but the height was only seven or
eight feet. Nevertheless the number of thoughts which passed through my mind during this very short, but
sudden and wholly unexpected fall, was astonishing, and seem hardly compatible with what physiologists
have, I believe, proved about each thought requiring quite an appreciable amount of time.
Nothing could have been worse for the development of my mind than Dr. Butler's school, as it was strictly
classical, nothing else being taught, except a little ancient geography and history. The school as a means of
education to me was simply a blank. During my whole life I have been singularly incapable of mastering any
language. Especial attention was paid to verse−making, and this I could never do well. I had many friends,
and got together a good collection of old verses, which by patching together, sometimes aided by other boys, I
could work into any subject. Much attention was paid to learning by heart the lessons of the previous day; this
I could effect with great facility, learning forty or fifty lines of Virgil or Homer, whilst I was in morning
chapel; but this exercise was utterly useless, for every verse was forgotten in forty−eight hours. I was not idle,
and with the exception of versification, generally worked conscientiously at my classics, not using cribs. The
sole pleasure I ever received from such studies, was from some of the odes of Horace, which I admired
greatly.
When I left the school I was for my age neither high nor low in it; and I believe that I was considered by all
my masters and by my father as a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect. To my
deep mortification my father once said to me, "You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat− catching, and
you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family." But my father, who was the kindest man I ever knew
and whose memory I love with all my heart, must have been angry and somewhat unjust when he used such
words.
Looking back as well as I can at my character during my school life, the only qualities which at this period
promised well for the future, were, that I had strong and diversified tastes, much zeal for whatever interested
me, and a keen pleasure in understanding any complex subject or thing. I was taught Euclid by a private tutor,
and I distinctly remember the intense satisfaction which the clear geometrical proofs gave me. I remember,
with equal distinctness, the delight which my uncle gave me (the father of Francis Galton) by explaining the
principle of the vernier of a barometer. with respect to diversified tastes, independently of science, I was fond
of reading various books, and I used to sit for hours reading the historical plays of Shakespeare, generally in
an old window in the thick walls of the school. I read also other poetry, such as Thomson's 'Seasons,' and the
recently published poems of Byron and Scott. I mention this because later in life I wholly lost, to my great
regret, all pleasure from poetry of any kind, including Shakespeare. In connection with pleasure from poetry, I
may add that in 1822 a vivid delight in scenery was first awakened in my mind, during a riding tour on the
borders of Wales, and this has lasted longer than any other aesthetic pleasure.
Early in my school days a boy had a copy of the 'Wonders of the World,' which I often read, and disputed with
other boys about the veracity of some of the statements; and I believe that this book first gave me a wish to
travel in remote countries, which was ultimately fulfilled by the voyage of the "Beagle". In the latter part of
my school life I became passionately fond of shooting; I do not believe that any one could have shown more
zeal for the most holy cause than I did for shooting birds. How well I remember killing my first snipe, and my
excitement was so great that I had much difficulty in reloading my gun from the trembling of my hands. This
taste long continued, and I became a very good shot. When at Cambridge I used to practise throwing up my
gun to my shoulder before a looking−glass to see that I threw it up straight. Another and better plan was to get
a friend to wave about a lighted candle, and then to fire at it with a cap on the nipple, and if the aim was
accurate the little puff of air would blow out the candle. The explosion of the cap caused a sharp crack, and I
was told that the tutor of the college remarked, "What an extraordinary thing it is, Mr. Darwin seems to spend
hours in cracking a horse−whip in his room, for I often hear the crack when I pass under his windows."
I had many friends amongst the schoolboys, whom I loved dearly, and I think that my disposition was then
very affectionate.
With respect to science, I continued collecting minerals with much zeal, but quite unscientifically−−all that I
cared about was a new−NAMED mineral, and I hardly attempted to classify them. I must have observed
insects with some little care, for when ten years old (1819) I went for three weeks to Plas Edwards on the
sea−coast in Wales, I was very much interested and surprised at seeing a large black and scarlet Hemipterous
insect, many moths (Zygaena), and a Cicindela which are not found in Shropshire. I almost made up my mind
to begin collecting all the insects which I could find dead, for on consulting my sister I concluded that it was
not right to kill insects for the sake of making a collection. From reading White's 'Selborne,' I took much
pleasure in watching the habits of birds, and even made notes on the subject. In my simplicity I remember
wondering why every gentleman did not become an ornithologist.
Towards the close of my school life, my brother worked hard at chemistry, and made a fair laboratory with
proper apparatus in the tool−house in the garden, and I was allowed to aid him as a servant in most of his
experiments. He made all the gases and many compounds, and I read with great care several books on
chemistry, such as Henry and Parkes' 'Chemical Catechism.' The subject interested me greatly, and we often
used to go on working till rather late at night. This was the best part of my education at school, for it showed
me practically the meaning of experimental science. The fact that we worked at chemistry somehow got
known at school, and as it was an unprecedented fact, I was nicknamed "Gas." I was also once publicly
rebuked by the head−master, Dr. Butler, for thus wasting my time on such useless subjects; and he called me
very unjustly a "poco curante," and as I did not understand what he meant, it seemed to me a fearful reproach.
As I was doing no good at school, my father wisely took me away at a rather earlier age than usual, and sent
me (Oct. 1825) to Edinburgh University with my brother, where I stayed for two years or sessions. My brother
was completing his medical studies, though I do not believe he ever really intended to practise, and I was sent
there to commence them. But soon after this period I became convinced from various small circumstances that
my father would leave me property enough to subsist on with some comfort, though I never imagined that I
should be so rich a man as I am; but my belief was sufficient to check any strenuous efforts to learn medicine.
The instruction at Edinburgh was altogether by lectures, and these were intolerably dull, with the exception of
those on chemistry by Hope; but to my mind there are no advantages and many disadvantages in lectures
compared with reading. Dr. Duncan's lectures on Materia Medica at 8 o'clock on a winter's morning are
something fearful to remember. Dr.−− made his lectures on human anatomy as dull as he was himself, and the
subject disgusted me. It has proved one of the greatest evils in my life that I was not urged to practise
dissection, for I should soon have got over my disgust; and the practice would have been invaluable for all my
future work. This has been an irremediable evil, as well as my incapacity to draw. I also attended regularly the
clinical wards in the hospital. Some of the cases distressed me a good deal, and I still have vivid pictures
before me of some of them; but I was not so foolish as to allow this to lessen my attendance. I cannot
understand why this part of my medical course did not interest me in a greater degree; for during the summer
before coming to Edinburgh I began attending some of the poor people, chiefly children and women in
Shrewsbury: I wrote down as full an account as I could of the case with all the symptoms, and read them
aloud to my father, who suggested further inquiries and advised me what medicines to give, which I made up
myself. At one time I had at least a dozen patients, and I felt a keen interest in the work. My father, who was
by far the best judge of character whom I ever knew, declared that I should make a successful
physician,−−meaning by this one who would get many patients. He maintained that the chief element of
success was exciting confidence; but what he saw in me which convinced him that I should create confidence
I know not. I also attended on two occasions the operating theatre in the hospital at Edinburgh, and saw two
very bad operations, one on a child, but I rushed away before they were completed. Nor did I ever attend
again, for hardly any inducement would have been strong enough to make me do so; this being long before the
blessed days of chloroform. The two cases fairly haunted me for many a long year.
My brother stayed only one year at the University, so that during the second year I was left to my own
resources; and this was an advantage, for I became well acquainted with several young men fond of natural
science. One of these was Ainsworth, who afterwards published his travels in Assyria; he was a Wernerian
geologist, and knew a little about many subjects. Dr. Coldstream was a very different young man, prim,
formal, highly religious, and most kind−hearted; he afterwards published some good zoological articles. A
third young man was Hardie, who would, I think, have made a good botanist, but died early in India. Lastly,
Dr. Grant, my senior by several years, but how I became acquainted with him I cannot remember; he
published some first− rate zoological papers, but after coming to London as Professor in University College,
he did nothing more in science, a fact which has always been inexplicable to me. I knew him well; he was dry
and formal in manner, with much enthusiasm beneath this outer crust. He one day, when we were walking
together, burst forth in high admiration of Lamarck and his views on evolution. I listened in silent
astonishment, and as far as I can judge without any effect on my mind. I had previously read the 'Zoonomia'
of my grandfather, in which similar views are maintained, but without producing any effect on me.
Nevertheless it is probable that the hearing rather early in life such views maintained and praised may have
favoured my upholding them under a different form in my 'Origin of Species.' At this time I admired greatly
the 'Zoonomia;' but on reading it a second time after an interval of ten or fifteen years, I was much
disappointed; the proportion of speculation being so large to the facts given.
Drs. Grant and Coldstream attended much to marine Zoology, and I often accompanied the former to collect
animals in the tidal pools, which I dissected as well as I could. I also became friends with some of the
Newhaven fishermen, and sometimes accompanied them when they trawled for oysters, and thus got many
specimens. But from not having had any regular practice in dissection, and from possessing only a wretched
microscope, my attempts were very poor. Nevertheless I made one interesting little discovery, and read, about
the beginning of the year 1826, a short paper on the subject before the Plinian Society. This was that the
so−called ova of Flustra had the power of independent movement by means of cilia, and were in fact larvae.
In another short paper I showed that the little globular bodies which had been supposed to be the young state
of Fucus loreus were the egg−cases of the wormlike Pontobdella muricata.
The Plinian Society was encouraged and, I believe, founded by Professor Jameson: it consisted of students
and met in an underground room in the University for the sake of reading papers on natural science and
discussing them. I used regularly to attend, and the meetings had a good effect on me in stimulating my zeal
and giving me new congenial acquaintances. One evening a poor young man got up, and after stammering for
a prodigious length of time, blushing crimson, he at last slowly got out the words, "Mr. President, I have
forgotten what I was going to say." The poor fellow looked quite overwhelmed, and all the members were so
surprised that no one could think of a word to say to cover his confusion. The papers which were read to our
little society were not printed, so that I had not the satisfaction of seeing my paper in print; but I believe Dr.
Grant noticed my small discovery in his excellent memoir on Flustra.
I was also a member of the Royal Medical Society, and attended pretty regularly; but as the subjects were
exclusively medical, I did not much care about them. Much rubbish was talked there, but there were some
good speakers, of whom the best was the present Sir J. Kay−Shuttleworth. Dr. Grant took me occasionally to
the meetings of the Wernerian Society, where various papers on natural history were read, discussed, and
afterwards published in the 'Transactions.' I heard Audubon deliver there some interesting discourses on the
habits of N. American birds, sneering somewhat unjustly at Waterton. By the way, a negro lived in Edinburgh,
who had travelled with Waterton, and gained his livelihood by stuffing birds, which he did excellently: he
gave me lessons for payment, and I used often to sit with him, for he was a very pleasant and intelligent man.
Mr. Leonard Horner also took me once to a meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, where I saw Sir
Walter Scott in the chair as President, and he apologised to the meeting as not feeling fitted for such a
position. I looked at him and at the whole scene with some awe and reverence, and I think it was owing to this
visit during my youth, and to my having attended the Royal Medical Society, that I felt the honour of being
elected a few years ago an honorary member of both these Societies, more than any other similar honour. If I
had been told at that time that I should one day have been thus honoured, I declare that I should have thought
it as ridiculous and improbable, as if I had been told that I should be elected King of England.
During my second year at Edinburgh I attended −−'s lectures on Geology and Zoology, but they were
incredibly dull. The sole effect they produced on me was the determination never as long as I lived to read a
book on Geology, or in any way to study the science. Yet I feel sure that I was prepared for a philosophical
treatment of the subject; for an old Mr. Cotton in Shropshire, who knew a good deal about rocks, had pointed
out to me two or three years previously a well−known large erratic boulder in the town of Shrewsbury, called
the "bell−stone"; he told me that there was no rock of the same kind nearer than Cumberland or Scotland, and
he solemnly assured me that the world would come to an end before any one would be able to explain how
this stone came where it now lay. This produced a deep impression on me, and I meditated over this
wonderful stone. So that I felt the keenest delight when I first read of the action of icebergs in transporting
boulders, and I gloried in the progress of Geology. Equally striking is the fact that I, though now only
sixty−seven years old, heard the Professor, in a field lecture at Salisbury Craigs, discoursing on a trapdyke,
with amygdaloidal margins and the strata indurated on each side, with volcanic rocks all around us, say that it
was a fissure filled with sediment from above, adding with a sneer that there were men who maintained that it
had been injected from beneath in a molten condition. When I think of this lecture, I do not wonder that I
determined never to attend to Geology.
>From attending −−'s lectures, I became acquainted with the curator of the museum, Mr. Macgillivray, who
afterwards published a large and excellent book on the birds of Scotland. I had much interesting
natural−history talk with him, and he was very kind to me. He gave me some rare shells, for I at that time
collected marine mollusca, but with no great zeal.
My summer vacations during these two years were wholly given up to amusements, though I always had some
book in hand, which I read with interest. During the summer of 1826 I took a long walking tour with two
friends with knapsacks on our backs through North wales. We walked thirty miles most days, including one
day the ascent of Snowdon. I also went with my sister a riding tour in North Wales, a servant with
saddle−bags carrying our clothes. The autumns were devoted to shooting chiefly at Mr. Owen's, at
Woodhouse, and at my Uncle Jos's (Josiah Wedgwood, the son of the founder of the Etruria Works.) at Maer.
My zeal was so great that I used to place my shooting−boots open by my bed−side when I went to bed, so as
not to lose half a minute in putting them on in the morning; and on one occasion I reached a distant part of the
Maer estate, on the 20th of August for black−game shooting, before I could see: I then toiled on with the
game−keeper the whole day through thick heath and young Scotch firs.
I kept an exact record of every bird which I shot throughout the whole season. One day when shooting at
Woodhouse with Captain Owen, the eldest son, and Major Hill, his cousin, afterwards Lord Berwick, both of
whom I liked very much, I thought myself shamefully used, for every time after I had fired and thought that I
had killed a bird, one of the two acted as if loading his gun, and cried out, "You must not count that bird, for I
fired at the same time," and the gamekeeper, perceiving the joke, backed them up. After some hours they told
me the joke, but it was no joke to me, for I had shot a large number of birds, but did not know how many, and
could not add them to my list, which I used to do by making a knot in a piece of string tied to a button−hole.

This my wicked friends had perceived.
How I did enjoy shooting! But I think that I must have been half−consciously ashamed of my zeal, for I tried
to persuade myself that shooting was almost an intellectual employment; it required so much skill to judge
where to find most game and to hunt the dogs well.
One of my autumnal visits to Maer in 1827 was memorable from meeting there Sir J. Mackintosh, who was
the best converser I ever listened to. I heard afterwards with a glow of pride that he had said, "There is
something in that young man that interests me." This must have been chiefly due to his perceiving that I
listened with much interest to everything which he said, for I was as ignorant as a pig about his subjects of
history, politics, and moral philosophy. To hear of praise from an eminent person, though no doubt apt or
certain to excite vanity, is, I think, good for a young man, as it helps to keep him in the right course.
My visits to Maer during these two or three succeeding years were quite delightful, independently of the
autumnal shooting. Life there was perfectly free; the country was very pleasant for walking or riding; and in
the evening there was much very agreeable conversation, not so personal as it generally is in large family
parties, together with music. In the summer the whole family used often to sit on the steps of the old portico,
with the flower−garden in front, and with the steep wooded bank opposite the house reflected in the lake, with
here and there a fish rising or a water−bird paddling about. Nothing has left a more vivid picture on my mind
than these evenings at Maer. I was also attached to and greatly revered my Uncle Jos; he was silent and
reserved, so as to be a rather awful man; but he sometimes talked openly with me. He was the very type of an
upright man, with the clearest judgment. I do not believe that any power on earth could have made him
swerve an inch from what he considered the right course. I used to apply to him in my mind the well− known
ode of Horace, now forgotten by me, in which the words "nec vultus tyranni, etc.," come in. (Justum et
tenacem propositi virum Non civium ardor prava jubentium Non vultus instantis tyranni Mente quatit solida.)
CAMBRIDGE 1828−1831.
After having spent two sessions in Edinburgh, my father perceived, or he heard from my sisters, that I did not
like the thought of being a physician, so he proposed that I should become a clergyman. He was very properly
vehement against my turning into an idle sporting man, which then seemed my probable destination. I asked
for some time to consider, as from what little I had heard or thought on the subject I had scruples about
declaring my belief in all the dogmas of the Church of England; though otherwise I liked the thought of being
a country clergyman. Accordingly I read with care 'Pearson on the Creed,' and a few other books on divinity;
and as I did not then in the least doubt the strict and literal truth of every word in the Bible, I soon persuaded
myself that our Creed must be fully accepted.
Considering how fiercely I have been attacked by the orthodox, it seems ludicrous that I once intended to be a
clergyman. Nor was this intention and my father's wish ever formerly given up, but died a natural death when,
on leaving Cambridge, I joined the "Beagle" as naturalist. If the phrenologists are to be trusted, I was well
fitted in one respect to be a clergyman. A few years ago the secretaries of a German psychological society
asked me earnestly by letter for a photograph of myself; and some time afterwards I received the proceedings
of one of the meetings, in which it seemed that the shape of my head had been the subject of a public
discussion, and one of the speakers declared that I had the bump of reverence developed enough for ten
priests.
As it was decided that I should be a clergyman, it was necessary that I should go to one of the English
universities and take a degree; but as I had never opened a classical book since leaving school, I found to my
dismay, that in the two intervening years I had actually forgotten, incredible as it may appear, almost
everything which I had learnt, even to some few of the Greek letters. I did not therefore proceed to Cambridge
at the usual time in October, but worked with a private tutor in Shrewsbury, and went to Cambridge after the
Christmas vacation, early in 1828. I soon recovered my school standard of knowledge, and could translate
easy Greek books, such as Homer and the Greek Testament, with moderate facility.
During the three years which I spent at Cambridge my time was wasted, as far as the academical studies were
concerned, as completely as at Edinburgh and at school. I attempted mathematics, and even went during the
summer of 1828 with a private tutor (a very dull man) to Barmouth, but I got on very slowly. The work was
repugnant to me, chiefly from my not being able to see any meaning in the early steps in algebra. This
impatience was very foolish, and in after years I have deeply regretted that I did not proceed far enough at
least to understand something of the great leading principles of mathematics, for men thus endowed seem to
have an extra sense. But I do not believe that I should ever have succeeded beyond a very low grade. With
respect to Classics I did nothing except attend a few compulsory college lectures, and the attendance was
almost nominal. In my second year I had to work for a month or two to pass the Little−Go, which I did easily.
Again, in my last year I worked with some earnestness for my final degree of B.A., and brushed up my
Classics, together with a little Algebra and Euclid, which latter gave me much pleasure, as it did at school. In
order to pass the B.A. examination, it was also necessary to get up Paley's 'Evidences of Christianity,' and his
'Moral Philosophy.' This was done in a thorough manner, and I am convinced that I could have written out the
whole of the 'Evidences' with perfect correctness, but not of course in the clear language of Paley. The logic of
this book and, as I may add, of his 'Natural Theology,' gave me as much delight as did Euclid. The careful
study of these works, without attempting to learn any part by rote, was the only part of the academical course
which, as I then felt and as I still believe, was of the least use to me in the education of my mind. I did not at
that time trouble myself about Paley's premises; and taking these on trust, I was charmed and convinced by
the long line of argumentation. By answering well the examination questions in Paley, by doing Euclid well,
and by not failing miserably in Classics, I gained a good place among the oi polloi or crowd of men who do
not go in for honours. Oddly enough, I cannot remember how high I stood, and my memory fluctuates
between the fifth, tenth, or twelfth, name on the list. (Tenth in the list of January 1831.)
Public lectures on several branches were given in the University, attendance being quite voluntary; but I was
so sickened with lectures at Edinburgh that I did not even attend Sedgwick's eloquent and interesting lectures.
Had I done so I should probably have become a geologist earlier than I did. I attended, however, Henslow's
lectures on Botany, and liked them much for their extreme clearness, and the admirable illustrations; but I did
not study botany. Henslow used to take his pupils, including several of the older members of the University,
field excursions, on foot or in coaches, to distant places, or in a barge down the river, and lectured on the rarer
plants and animals which were observed. These excursions were delightful.
Although, as we shall presently see, there were some redeeming features in my life at Cambridge, my time
was sadly wasted there, and worse than wasted. From my passion for shooting and for hunting, and, when this
failed, for riding across country, I got into a sporting set, including some dissipated low−minded young men.
We used often to dine together in the evening, though these dinners often included men of a higher stamp, and
we sometimes drank too much, with jolly singing and playing at cards afterwards. I know that I ought to feel
ashamed of days and evenings thus spent, but as some of my friends were very pleasant, and we were all in
the highest spirits, I cannot help looking back to these times with much pleasure.
But I am glad to think that I had many other friends of a widely different nature. I was very intimate with
Whitley (Rev. C. Whitley, Hon. Canon of Durham, formerly Reader in Natural Philosophy in Durham
University.), who was afterwards Senior Wrangler, and we used continually to take long walks together. He
inoculated me with a taste for pictures and good engravings, of which I bought some. I frequently went to the
Fitzwilliam Gallery, and my taste must have been fairly good, for I certainly admired the best pictures, which
I discussed with the old curator. I read also with much interest Sir Joshua Reynolds' book. This taste, though
not natural to me, lasted for several years, and many of the pictures in the National Gallery in London gave
me much pleasure; that of Sebastian del Piombo exciting in me a sense of sublimity.
I also got into a musical set, I believe by means of my warm− hearted friend, Herbert (The late John Maurice
Herbert, County Court Judge of Cardiff and the Monmouth Circuit.), who took a high wrangler's degree. From
associating with these men, and hearing them play, I acquired a strong taste for music, and used very often to
time my walks so as to hear on week days the anthem in King's College Chapel. This gave me intense
pleasure, so that my backbone would sometimes shiver. I am sure that there was no affectation or mere
imitation in this taste, for I used generally to go by myself to King's College, and I sometimes hired the
chorister boys to sing in my rooms. Nevertheless I am so utterly destitute of an ear, that I cannot perceive a
discord, or keep time and hum a tune correctly; and it is a mystery how I could possibly have derived pleasure
from music.
My musical friends soon perceived my state, and sometimes amused themselves by making me pass an
examination, which consisted in ascertaining how many tunes I could recognise when they were played rather
more quickly or slowly than usual. 'God save the King,' when thus played, was a sore puzzle. There was
another man with almost as bad an ear as I had, and strange to say he played a little on the flute. Once I had
the triumph of beating him in one of our musical examinations.
But no pursuit at Cambridge was followed with nearly so much eagerness or gave me so much pleasure as
collecting beetles. It was the mere passion for collecting, for I did not dissect them, and rarely compared their
external characters with published descriptions, but got them named anyhow. I will give a proof of my zeal:
one day, on tearing off some old bark, I saw two rare beetles, and seized one in each hand; then I saw a third
and new kind, which I could not bear to lose, so that I popped the one which I held in my right hand into my
mouth. Alas! it ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I was forced to spit the
beetle out, which was lost, as was the third one.
I was very successful in collecting, and invented two new methods; I employed a labourer to scrape during the
winter, moss off old trees and place it in a large bag, and likewise to collect the rubbish at the bottom of the
barges in which reeds are brought from the fens, and thus I got some very rare species. No poet ever felt more
delighted at seeing his first poem published than I did at seeing, in Stephens' 'Illustrations of British Insects,'
the magic words, "captured by C. Darwin, Esq." I was introduced to entomology by my second cousin W.
Darwin Fox, a clever and most pleasant man, who was then at Christ's College, and with whom I became
extremely intimate. Afterwards I became well acquainted, and went out collecting, with Albert Way of
Trinity, who in after years became a well−known archaeologist; also with H. Thompson of the same College,
afterwards a leading agriculturist, chairman of a great railway, and Member of Parliament. It seems therefore
that a taste for collecting beetles is some indication of future success in life!
I am surprised what an indelible impression many of the beetles which I caught at Cambridge have left on my
mind. I can remember the exact appearance of certain posts, old trees and banks where I made a good capture.
The pretty Panagaeus crux−major was a treasure in those days, and here at Down I saw a beetle running
across a walk, and on picking it up instantly perceived that it differed slightly from P. crux−major, and it
turned out to be P. quadripunctatus, which is only a variety or closely allied species, differing from it very
slightly in outline. I had never seen in those old days Licinus alive, which to an uneducated eye hardly differs
from many of the black Carabidous beetles; but my sons found here a specimen, and I instantly recognised
that it was new to me; yet I had not looked at a British beetle for the last twenty years.
I have not as yet mentioned a circumstance which influenced my whole career more than any other. This was
my friendship with Professor Henslow. Before coming up to Cambridge, I had heard of him from my brother
as a man who knew every branch of science, and I was accordingly prepared to reverence him. He kept open
house once every week when all undergraduates, and some older members of the University, who were
attached to science, used to meet in the evening. I soon got, through Fox, an invitation, and went there
regularly. Before long I became well acquainted with Henslow, and during the latter half of my time at
Cambridge took long walks with him on most days; so that I was called by some of the dons "the man who
walks with Henslow;" and in the evening I was very often asked to join his family dinner. His knowledge was
great in botany, entomology, chemistry, mineralogy, and geology. His strongest taste was to draw conclusions
from long− continued minute observations. His judgment was excellent, and his whole mind well balanced;
but I do not suppose that any one would say that he possessed much original genius. He was deeply religious,
and so orthodox that he told me one day he should be grieved if a single word of the Thirty−nine Articles
were altered. His moral qualities were in every way admirable. He was free from every tinge of vanity or
other petty feeling; and I never saw a man who thought so little about himself or his own concerns. His temper
was imperturbably good, with the most winning and courteous manners; yet, as I have seen, he could be
roused by any bad action to the warmest indignation and prompt action.
I once saw in his company in the streets of Cambridge almost as horrid a scene as could have been witnessed
during the French Revolution. Two body−snatchers had been arrested, and whilst being taken to prison had
been torn from the constable by a crowd of the roughest men, who dragged them by their legs along the
muddy and stony road. They were covered from head to foot with mud, and their faces were bleeding either
from having been kicked or from the stones; they looked like corpses, but the crowd was so dense that I got
only a few momentary glimpses of the wretched creatures. Never in my life have I seen such wrath painted on
a man's face as was shown by Henslow at this horrid scene. He tried repeatedly to penetrate the mob; but it
was simply impossible. He then rushed away to the mayor, telling me not to follow him, but to get more
policemen. I forget the issue, except that the two men were got into the prison without being killed.
Henslow's benevolence was unbounded, as he proved by his many excellent schemes for his poor
parishioners, when in after years he held the living of Hitcham. My intimacy with such a man ought to have
been, and I hope was, an inestimable benefit. I cannot resist mentioning a trifling incident, which showed his
kind consideration. Whilst examining some pollen−grains on a damp surface, I saw the tubes exserted, and
instantly rushed off to communicate my surprising discovery to him. Now I do not suppose any other
professor of botany could have helped laughing at my coming in such a hurry to make such a communication.
But he agreed how interesting the phenomenon was, and explained its meaning, but made me clearly
understand how well it was known; so I left him not in the least mortified, but well pleased at having
discovered for myself so remarkable a fact, but determined not to be in such a hurry again to communicate my
discoveries.
Dr. Whewell was one of the older and distinguished men who sometimes visited Henslow, and on several
occasions I walked home with him at night. Next to Sir J. Mackintosh he was the best converser on grave
subjects to whom I ever listened. Leonard Jenyns (The well−known Soame Jenyns was cousin to Mr. Jenyns'
father.), who afterwards published some good essays in Natural History (Mr. Jenyns (now Blomefield)
described the fish for the Zoology of the "Beagle"; and is author of a long series of papers, chiefly
Zoological.), often stayed with Henslow, who was his brother−in−law. I visited him at his parsonage on the
borders of the Fens [Swaffham Bulbeck], and had many a good walk and talk with him about Natural History.
I became also acquainted with several other men older than me, who did not care much about science, but
were friends of Henslow. One was a Scotchman, brother of Sir Alexander Ramsay, and tutor of Jesus College:
he was a delightful man, but did not live for many years. Another was Mr. Dawes, afterwards Dean of
Hereford, and famous for his success in the education of the poor. These men and others of the same standing,
together with Henslow, used sometimes to take distant excursions into the country, which I was allowed to
join, and they were most agreeable.
Looking back, I infer that there must have been something in me a little superior to the common run of
youths, otherwise the above− mentioned men, so much older than me and higher in academical position,
would never have allowed me to associate with them. Certainly I was not aware of any such superiority, and I
remember one of my sporting friends, Turner, who saw me at work with my beetles, saying that I should some
day be a Fellow of the Royal Society, and the notion seemed to me preposterous.
During my last year at Cambridge, I read with care and profound interest Humboldt's 'Personal Narrative.'
This work, and Sir J. Herschel's 'Introduction to the Study of Natural Philosophy,' stirred up in me a burning
zeal to add even the most humble contribution to the noble structure of Natural Science. No one or a dozen
other books influenced me nearly so much as these two. I copied out from Humboldt long passages about
Teneriffe, and read them aloud on one of the above−mentioned excursions, to (I think) Henslow, Ramsay, and
Dawes, for on a previous occasion I had talked about the glories of Teneriffe, and some of the party declared
they would endeavour to go there; but I think that they were only half in earnest. I was, however, quite in
earnest, and got an introduction to a merchant in London to enquire about ships; but the scheme was, of
course, knocked on the head by the voyage of the "Beagle".
My summer vacations were given up to collecting beetles, to some reading, and short tours. In the autumn my
whole time was devoted to shooting, chiefly at Woodhouse and Maer, and sometimes with young Eyton of
Eyton. Upon the whole the three years which I spent at Cambridge were the most joyful in my happy life; for I
was then in excellent health, and almost always in high spirits.
As I had at first come up to Cambridge at Christmas, I was forced to keep two terms after passing my final
examination, at the commencement of 1831; and Henslow then persuaded me to begin the study of geology.
Therefore on my return to Shropshire I examined sections, and coloured a map of parts round Shrewsbury.
Professor Sedgwick intended to visit North Wales in the beginning of August to pursue his famous geological
investigations amongst the older rocks, and Henslow asked him to allow me to accompany him. (In
connection with this tour my father used to tell a story about Sedgwick: they had started from their inn one
morning, and had walked a mile or two, when Sedgwick suddenly stopped, and vowed that he would return,
being certain "that damned scoundrel" (the waiter) had not given the chambermaid the sixpence intrusted to
him for the purpose. He was ultimately persuaded to give up the project, seeing that there was no reason for
suspecting the waiter of especial perfidy.−−F.D.) Accordingly he came and slept at my father's house.
A short conversation with him during this evening produced a strong impression on my mind. Whilst
examining an old gravel−pit near Shrewsbury, a labourer told me that he had found in it a large worn tropical
Volute shell, such as may be seen on the chimney−pieces of cottages; and as he would not sell the shell, I was
convinced that he had really found it in the pit. I told Sedgwick of the fact, and he at once said (no doubt
truly) that it must have been thrown away by some one into the pit; but then added, if really embedded there it
would be the greatest misfortune to geology, as it would overthrow all that we know about the superficial
deposits of the Midland Counties. These gravel−beds belong in fact to the glacial period, and in after years I
found in them broken arctic shells. But I was then utterly astonished at Sedgwick not being delighted at so
wonderful a fact as a tropical shell being found near the surface in the middle of England. Nothing before had
ever made me thoroughly realise, though I had read various scientific books, that science consists in grouping
facts so that general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them.
Next morning we started for Llangollen, Conway, Bangor, and Capel Curig. This tour was of decided use in
teaching me a little how to make out the geology of a country. Sedgwick often sent me on a line parallel to
his, telling me to bring back specimens of the rocks and to mark the stratification on a map. I have little doubt
that he did this for my good, as I was too ignorant to have aided him. On this tour I had a striking instance of
how easy it is to overlook phenomena, however conspicuous, before they have been observed by any one. We
spent many hours in Cwm Idwal, examining all the rocks with extreme care, as Sedgwick was anxious to find
fossils in them; but neither of us saw a trace of the wonderful glacial phenomena all around us; we did not
notice the plainly scored rocks, the perched boulders, the lateral and terminal moraines. Yet these phenomena
are so conspicuous that, as I declared in a paper published many years afterwards in the 'Philosophical
Magazine' ('Philosophical Magazine,' 1842.), a house burnt down by fire did not tell its story more plainly
than did this valley. If it had still been filled by a glacier, the phenomena would have been less distinct than
they now are.
At Capel Curig I left Sedgwick and went in a straight line by compass and map across the mountains to
Barmouth, never following any track unless it coincided with my course. I thus came on some strange wild
places, and enjoyed much this manner of travelling. I visited Barmouth to see some Cambridge friends who
were reading there, and thence returned to Shrewsbury and to Maer for shooting; for at that time I should have
thought myself mad to give up the first days of partridge−shooting for geology or any other science.

"VOYAGE OF THE 'BEAGLE' FROM DECEMBER 27, 1831, TO OCTOBER 2, 1836."

On returning home from my short geological tour in North Wales, I found a letter from Henslow, informing
me that Captain Fitz−Roy was willing to give up part of his own cabin to any young man who would
volunteer to go with him without pay as naturalist to the Voyage of the "Beagle". I have given, as I believe, in
my MS. Journal an account of all the circumstances which then occurred; I will here only say that I was
instantly eager to accept the offer, but my father strongly objected, adding the words, fortunate for me, "If you
can find any man of common sense who advises you to go I will give my consent." So I wrote that evening
and refused the offer. On the next morning I went to Maer to be ready for September 1st, and, whilst out
shooting, my uncle (Josiah Wedgwood.) sent for me, offering to drive me over to Shrewsbury and talk with
my father, as my uncle thought it would be wise in me to accept the offer. My father always maintained that
he was one of the most sensible men in the world, and he at once consented in the kindest manner. I had been
rather extravagant at Cambridge, and to console my father, said, "that I should be deuced clever to spend more
than my allowance whilst on board the 'Beagle';" but he answered with a smile, "But they tell me you are very
clever."
Next day I started for Cambridge to see Henslow, and thence to London to see Fitz−Roy, and all was soon
arranged. Afterwards, on becoming very intimate with Fitz−Roy, I heard that I had run a very narrow risk of
being rejected, on account of the shape of my nose! He was an ardent disciple of Lavater, and was convinced
that he could judge of a man's character by the outline of his features; and he doubted whether any one with
my nose could possess sufficient energy and determination for the voyage. But I think he was afterwards well
satisfied that my nose had spoken falsely.
Fitz−Roy's character was a singular one, with very many noble features: he was devoted to his duty, generous
to a fault, bold, determined, and indomitably energetic, and an ardent friend to all under his sway. He would
undertake any sort of trouble to assist those whom he thought deserved assistance. He was a handsome man,
strikingly like a gentleman, with highly courteous manners, which resembled those of his maternal uncle, the
famous Lord Castlereagh, as I was told by the Minister at Rio. Nevertheless he must have inherited much in
his appearance from Charles II., for Dr. Wallich gave me a collection of photographs which he had made, and
I was struck with the resemblance of one to Fitz−Roy; and on looking at the name, I found it Ch. E. Sobieski
Stuart, Count d'Albanie, a descendant of the same monarch.
Fitz−Roy's temper was a most unfortunate one. It was usually worst in the early morning, and with his eagle
eye he could generally detect something amiss about the ship, and was then unsparing in his blame. He was
very kind to me, but was a man very difficult to live with on the intimate terms which necessarily followed
from our messing by ourselves in the same cabin. We had several quarrels; for instance, early in the voyage at
Bahia, in Brazil, he defended and praised slavery, which I abominated, and told me that he had just visited a
great slave−owner, who had called up many of his slaves and asked them whether they were happy, and
whether they wished to be free, and all answered "No." I then asked him, perhaps with a sneer, whether he
thought that the answer of slaves in the presence of their master was worth anything? This made him
excessively angry, and he said that as I doubted his word we could not live any longer together. I thought that
I should have been compelled to leave the ship; but as soon as the news spread, which it did quickly, as the
captain sent for the first lieutenant to assuage his anger by abusing me, I was deeply gratified by receiving an
invitation from all the gun−room officers to mess with them. But after a few hours Fitz−Roy showed his usual
magnanimity by sending an officer to me with an apology and a request that I would continue to live with
him.
His character was in several respects one of the most noble which I have ever known.
The voyage of the "Beagle" has been by far the most important event in my life, and has determined my
whole career; yet it depended on so small a circumstance as my uncle offering to drive me thirty miles to
Shrewsbury, which few uncles would have done, and on such a trifle as the shape of my nose. I have always
felt that I owe to the voyage the first real training or education of my mind; I was led to attend closely to
several branches of natural history, and thus my powers of observation were improved, though they were
always fairly developed.
The investigation of the geology of all the places visited was far more important, as reasoning here comes into
play. On first examining a new district nothing can appear more hopeless than the chaos of rocks; but by
recording the stratification and nature of the rocks and fossils at many points, always reasoning and predicting
what will be found elsewhere, light soon begins to dawn on the district, and the structure of the whole
becomes more or less intelligible. I had brought with me the first volume of Lyell's 'Principles of Geology,'
which I studied attentively; and the book was of the highest service to me in many ways. The very first place
which I examined, namely St. Jago in the Cape de Verde islands, showed me clearly the wonderful superiority
of Lyell's manner of treating geology, compared with that of any other author, whose works I had with me or
ever afterwards read.
Another of my occupations was collecting animals of all classes, briefly describing and roughly dissecting
many of the marine ones; but from not being able to draw, and from not having sufficient anatomical
knowledge, a great pile of MS. which I made during the voyage has proved almost useless. I thus lost much
time, with the exception of that spent in acquiring some knowledge of the Crustaceans, as this was of service
when in after years I undertook a monograph of the Cirripedia.
During some part of the day I wrote my Journal, and took much pains in describing carefully and vividly all
that I had seen; and this was good practice. My Journal served also, in part, as letters to my home, and
portions were sent to England whenever there was an opportunity.
The above various special studies were, however, of no importance compared with the habit of energetic
industry and of concentrated attention to whatever I was engaged in, which I then acquired. Everything about
which I thought or read was made to bear directly on what I had seen or was likely to see; and this habit of
mind was continued during the five years of the voyage. I feel sure that it was this training which has enabled
me to do whatever I have done in science.
Looking backwards, I can now perceive how my love for science gradually preponderated over every other
taste. During the first two years my old passion for shooting survived in nearly full force, and I shot myself all
the birds and animals for my collection; but gradually I gave up my gun more and more, and finally
altogether, to my servant, as shooting interfered with my work, more especially with making out the
geological structure of a country. I discovered, though unconsciously and insensibly, that the pleasure of
observing and reasoning was a much higher one than that of skill and sport. That my mind became developed
through my pursuits during the voyage is rendered probable by a remark made by my father, who was the
most acute observer whom I ever saw, of a sceptical disposition, and far from being a believer in phrenology;
for on first seeing me after the voyage, he turned round to my sisters, and exclaimed, "Why, the shape of his
head is quite altered."
To return to the voyage. On September 11th (1831), I paid a flying visit with Fitz−Roy to the "Beagle" at
Plymouth. Thence to Shrewsbury to wish my father and sisters a long farewell. On October 24th I took up my
residence at Plymouth, and remained there until December 27th, when the "Beagle" finally left the shores of
England for her circumnavigation of the world. We made two earlier attempts to sail, but were driven back
each time by heavy gales. These two months at Plymouth were the most miserable which I ever spent, though
I exerted myself in various ways. I was out of spirits at the thought of leaving all my family and friends for so
long a time, and the weather seemed to me inexpressibly gloomy. I was also troubled with palpitation and
pain about the heart, and like many a young ignorant man, especially one with a smattering of medical
knowledge, was convinced that I had heart disease. I did not consult any doctor, as I fully expected to hear the
verdict that I was not fit for the voyage, and I was resolved to go at all hazards.
I need not here refer to the events of the voyage−−where we went and what we did−−as I have given a
sufficiently full account in my published Journal. The glories of the vegetation of the Tropics rise before my
mind at the present time more vividly than anything else; though the sense of sublimity, which the great
deserts of Patagonia and the forest−clad mountains of Tierra del Fuego excited in me, has left an indelible
impression on my mind. The sight of a naked savage in his native land is an event which can never be
forgotten. Many of my excursions on horseback through wild countries, or in the boats, some of which lasted
several weeks, were deeply interesting: their discomfort and some degree of danger were at that time hardly a
drawback, and none at all afterwards. I also reflect with high satisfaction on some of my scientific work, such
as solving the problem of coral islands, and making out the geological structure of certain islands, for
instance, St. Helena. Nor must I pass over the discovery of the singular relations of the animals and plants
inhabiting the several islands of the Galapagos archipelago, and of all of them to the inhabitants of South
America.
As far as I can judge of myself, I worked to the utmost during the voyage from the mere pleasure of
investigation, and from my strong desire to add a few facts to the great mass of facts in Natural Science. But I
was also ambitious to take a fair place among scientific men,−−whether more ambitious or less so than most
of my fellow−workers, I can form no opinion.
The geology of St. Jago is very striking, yet simple: a stream of lava formerly flowed over the bed of the sea,
formed of triturated recent shells and corals, which it has baked into a hard white rock. Since then the whole
island has been upheaved. But the line of white rock revealed to me a new and important fact, namely, that
there had been afterwards subsidence round the craters, which had since been in action, and had poured forth
lava. It then first dawned on me that I might perhaps write a book on the geology of the various countries
visited, and this made me thrill with delight. That was a memorable hour to me, and how distinctly I can call
to mind the low cliff of lava beneath which I rested, with the sun glaring hot, a few strange desert plants
growing near, and with living corals in the tidal pools at my feet. Later in the voyage, Fitz−Roy asked me to
read some of my Journal, and declared it would be worth publishing; so here was a second book in prospect!
Towards the close of our voyage I received a letter whilst at Ascension, in which my sisters told me that
Sedgwick had called on my father, and said that I should take a place among the leading scientific men. I
could not at the time understand how he could have learnt anything of my proceedings, but I heard (I believe
afterwards) that Henslow had read some of the letters which I wrote to him before the Philosophical Society
of Cambridge (Read at the meeting held November 16, 1835, and printed in a pamphlet of 31 pages for
distribution among the members of the Society.), and had printed them for private distribution. My collection
of fossil bones, which had been sent to Henslow, also excited considerable attention amongst palaeontologists.
After reading this letter, I clambered over the mountains of Ascension with a bounding step, and made the
volcanic rocks resound under my geological hammer. All this shows how ambitious I was; but I think that I
can say with truth that in after years, though I cared in the highest degree for the approbation of such men as
Lyell and Hooker, who were my friends, I did not care much about the general public. I do not mean to say
that a favourable review or a large sale of my books did not please me greatly, but the pleasure was a fleeting
one, and I am sure that I have never turned one inch out of my course to gain fame.
FROM MY RETURN TO ENGLAND (OCTOBER 2, 1836) TO MY MARRIAGE (JANUARY 29, 1839.)
These two years and three months were the most active ones which I ever spent, though I was occasionally
unwell, and so lost some time. After going backwards and forwards several times between Shrewsbury, Maer,
Cambridge, and London, I settled in lodgings at Cambridge (In Fitzwilliam Street.) on December 13th, where
all my collections were under the care of Henslow. I stayed here three months, and got my minerals and rocks
examined by the aid of Professor Miller.
I began preparing my 'Journal of Travels,' which was not hard work, as my MS. Journal had been written with
care, and my chief labour was making an abstract of my more interesting scientific results. I sent also, at the
request of Lyell, a short account of my observations on the elevation of the coast of Chile to the Geological
Society. ('Geolog. Soc. Proc. ii. 1838, pages 446− 449.)
On March 7th, 1837, I took lodgings in Great Marlborough Street in London, and remained there for nearly
two years, until I was married. During these two years I finished my Journal, read several papers before the
Geological Society, began preparing the MS. for my 'Geological Observations,' and arranged for the
publication of the 'Zoology of the Voyage of the "Beagle".' In July I opened my first note−book for facts in
relation to the Origin of Species, about which I had long reflected, and never ceased working for the next
twenty years.
During these two years I also went a little into society, and acted as one of the honorary secretaries of the
Geological Society. I saw a great deal of Lyell. One of his chief characteristics was his sympathy with the
work of others, and I was as much astonished as delighted at the interest which he showed when, on my return
to England, I explained to him my views on coral reefs. This encouraged me greatly, and his advice and
example had much influence on me. During this time I saw also a good deal of Robert Brown; I used often to
call and sit with him during his breakfast on Sunday mornings, and he poured forth a rich treasure of curious
observations and acute remarks, but they almost always related to minute points, and he never with me
discussed large or general questions in science.
During these two years I took several short excursions as a relaxation, and one longer one to the Parallel
Roads of Glen Roy, an account of which was published in the 'Philosophical Transactions.' (1839, pages
39−82.) This paper was a great failure, and I am ashamed of it. Having been deeply impressed with what I had
seen of the elevation of the land of South America, I attributed the parallel lines to the action of the sea; but I
had to give up this view when Agassiz propounded his glacier−lake theory. Because no other explanation was
possible under our then state of knowledge, I argued in favour of sea− action; and my error has been a good
lesson to me never to trust in science to the principle of exclusion.
As I was not able to work all day at science, I read a good deal during these two years on various subjects,
including some metaphysical books; but I was not well fitted for such studies. About this time I took much
delight in Wordsworth's and Coleridge's poetry; and can boast that I read the 'Excursion' twice through.
Formerly Milton's 'Paradise Lost' had been my chief favourite, and in my excursions during the voyage of the
"Beagle", when I could take only a single volume, I always chose Milton.
FROM MY MARRIAGE, JANUARY 29, 1839, AND RESIDENCE IN UPPER GOWER STREET, TO
OUR LEAVING LONDON AND SETTLING AT DOWN, SEPTEMBER 14, 1842.
(After speaking of his happy married life, and of his children, he continues:−−)
During the three years and eight months whilst we resided in London, I did less scientific work, though I
worked as hard as I possibly could, than during any other equal length of time in my life. This was owing to
frequently recurring unwellness, and to one long and serious illness. The greater part of my time, when I could
do anything, was devoted to my work on 'Coral Reefs,' which I had begun before my marriage, and of which
the last proof−sheet was corrected on May 6th, 1842. This book, though a small one, cost me twenty months
of hard work, as I had to read every work on the islands of the Pacific and to consult many charts. It was
thought highly of by scientific men, and the theory therein given is, I think, now well established.
No other work of mine was begun in so deductive a spirit as this, for the whole theory was thought out on the
west coast of South America, before I had seen a true coral reef. I had therefore only to verify and extend my
views by a careful examination of living reefs. But it should be observed that I had during the two previous
years been incessantly attending to the effects on the shores of South America of the intermittent elevation of
the land, together with denudation and the deposition of sediment. This necessarily led me to reflect much on
the effects of subsidence, and it was easy to replace in imagination the continued deposition of sediment by
the upward growth of corals. To do this was to form my theory of the formation of barrier− reefs and atolls.
Besides my work on coral−reefs, during my residence in London, I read before the Geological Society papers
on the Erratic Boulders of South America ('Geolog. Soc. Proc.' iii. 1842.), on Earthquakes ('Geolog. Trans. v.
1840.), and on the Formation by the Agency of Earth−worms of Mould. ('Geolog. Soc. Proc. ii. 1838.) I also
continued to superintend the publication of the 'Zoology of the Voyage of the "Beagle".' Nor did I ever
intermit collecting facts bearing on the origin of species; and I could sometimes do this when I could do
nothing else from illness.
In the summer of 1842 I was stronger than I had been for some time, and took a little tour by myself in North
Wales, for the sake of observing the effects of the old glaciers which formerly filled all the larger valleys. I
published a short account of what I saw in the 'Philosophical Magazine.' ('Philosophical Magazine,' 1842.)
This excursion interested me greatly, and it was the last time I was ever strong enough to climb mountains or
to take long walks such as are necessary for geological work.
During the early part of our life in London, I was strong enough to go into general society, and saw a good
deal of several scientific men, and other more or less distinguished men. I will give my impressions with
respect to some of them, though I have little to say worth saying.
I saw more of Lyell than of any other man, both before and after my marriage. His mind was characterised, as
it appeared to me, by clearness, caution, sound judgment, and a good deal of originality. When I made any
remark to him on Geology, he never rested until he saw the whole case clearly, and often made me see it more
clearly than I had done before. He would advance all possible objections to my suggestion, and even after
these were exhausted would long remain dubious. A second characteristic was his hearty sympathy with the
work of other scientific men. (The slight repetition here observable is accounted for by the notes on Lyell,
etc., having been added in April, 1881, a few years after the rest of the 'Recollections' were written.)
On my return from the voyage of the "Beagle", I explained to him my views on coral−reefs, which differed
from his, and I was greatly surprised and encouraged by the vivid interest which he showed. His delight in
science was ardent, and he felt the keenest interest in the future progress of mankind. He was very
kind−hearted, and thoroughly liberal in his religious beliefs, or rather disbeliefs; but he was a strong theist.
His candour was highly remarkable. He exhibited this by becoming a convert to the Descent theory, though he
had gained much fame by opposing Lamarck's views, and this after he had grown old. He reminded me that I
had many years before said to him, when discussing the opposition of the old school of geologists to his new
views, "What a good thing it would be if every scientific man was to die when sixty years old, as afterwards
he would be sure to oppose all new doctrines." But he hoped that now he might be allowed to live.
The science of Geology is enormously indebted to Lyell−−more so, as I believe, than to any other man who
ever lived. When [I was] starting on the voyage of the "Beagle", the sagacious Henslow, who, like all other
geologists, believed at that time in successive cataclysms, advised me to get and study the first volume of the
'Principles,' which had then just been published, but on no account to accept the views therein advocated. How
differently would anyone now speak of the 'Principles'! I am proud to remember that the first place, namely,
St. Jago, in the Cape de Verde archipelago, in which I geologised, convinced me of the infinite superiority of
Lyell's views over those advocated in any other work known to me.
The powerful effects of Lyell's works could formerly be plainly seen in the different progress of the science in
France and England. The present total oblivion of Elie de Beaumont's wild hypotheses, such as his 'Craters of
Elevation' and 'Lines of Elevation' (which latter hypothesis I heard Sedgwick at the Geological Society
lauding to the skies), may be largely attributed to Lyell.
I saw a good deal of Robert Brown, "facile Princeps Botanicorum," as he was called by Humboldt. He seemed
to me to be chiefly remarkable for the minuteness of his observations, and their perfect accuracy.

His knowledge was extraordinarily great, and much died with him, owing to his excessive fear of ever making a
mistake. He poured out his knowledge to me in the most unreserved manner, yet was strangely jealous on
some points. I called on him two or three times before the voyage of the "Beagle", and on one occasion he
asked me to look through a microscope and describe what I saw. This I did, and believe now that it was the
marvellous currents of protoplasm in some vegetable cell. I then asked him what I had seen; but he answered
me, "That is my little secret."
He was capable of the most generous actions. When old, much out of health, and quite unfit for any exertion,
he daily visited (as Hooker told me) an old man−servant, who lived at a distance (and whom he supported),
and read aloud to him. This is enough to make up for any degree of scientific penuriousness or jealousy.
I may here mention a few other eminent men, whom I have occasionally seen, but I have little to say about
them worth saying. I felt a high reverence for Sir J. Herschel, and was delighted to dine with him at his
charming house at the Cape of Good Hope, and afterwards at his London house. I saw him, also, on a few
other occasions. He never talked much, but every word which he uttered was worth listening to.
I once met at breakfast at Sir R. Murchison's house the illustrious Humboldt, who honoured me by expressing
a wish to see me. I was a little disappointed with the great man, but my anticipations probably were too high. I
can remember nothing distinctly about our interview, except that Humboldt was very cheerful and talked
much.
−− reminds me of Buckle whom I once met at Hensleigh Wedgwood's. I was very glad to learn from him his
system of collecting facts. He told me that he bought all the books which he read, and made a full index, to
each, of the facts which he thought might prove serviceable to him, and that he could always remember in
what book he had read anything, for his memory was wonderful. I asked him how at first he could judge what
facts would be serviceable, and he answered that he did not know, but that a sort of instinct guided him. From
this habit of making indices, he was enabled to give the astonishing number of references on all sorts of
subjects, which may be found in his 'History of Civilisation.' This book I thought most interesting, and read it
twice, but I doubt whether his generalisations are worth anything. Buckle was a great talker, and I listened to
him saying hardly a word, nor indeed could I have done so for he left no gaps. When Mrs. Farrer began to
sing, I jumped up and said that I must listen to her; after I had moved away he turned around to a friend and
said (as was overheard by my brother), "Well, Mr. Darwin's books are much better than his conversation."
Of other great literary men, I once met Sydney Smith at Dean Milman's house. There was something
inexplicably amusing in every word which he uttered. Perhaps this was partly due to the expectation of being
amused. He was talking about Lady Cork, who was then extremely old. This was the lady who, as he said,
was once so much affected by one of his charity sermons, that she BORROWED a guinea from a friend to put
in the plate. He now said "It is generally believed that my dear old friend Lady Cork has been overlooked,"
and he said this in such a manner that no one could for a moment doubt that he meant that his dear old friend
had been overlooked by the devil. How he managed to express this I know not.
I likewise once met Macaulay at Lord Stanhope's (the historian's) house, and as there was only one other man
at dinner, I had a grand opportunity of hearing him converse, and he was very agreeable. He did not talk at all
too much; nor indeed could such a man talk too much, as long as he allowed others to turn the stream of his
conversation, and this he did allow.
Lord Stanhope once gave me a curious little proof of the accuracy and fulness of Macaulay's memory: many
historians used often to meet at Lord Stanhope's house, and in discussing various subjects they would
sometimes differ from Macaulay, and formerly they often referred to some book to see who was right; but
latterly, as Lord Stanhope noticed, no historian ever took this trouble, and whatever Macaulay said was final.
On another occasion I met at Lord Stanhope's house, one of his parties of historians and other literary men,
and amongst them were Motley and Grote. After luncheon I walked about Chevening Park for nearly an hour
with Grote, and was much interested by his conversation and pleased by the simplicity and absence of all
pretension in his manners.
Long ago I dined occasionally with the old Earl, the father of the historian; he was a strange man, but what
little I knew of him I liked much. He was frank, genial, and pleasant. He had strongly marked features, with a
brown complexion, and his clothes, when I saw him, were all brown. He seemed to believe in everything
which was to others utterly incredible. He said one day to me, "Why don't you give up your fiddle−faddle of
geology and zoology, and turn to the occult sciences!" The historian, then Lord Mahon, seemed shocked at
such a speech to me, and his charming wife much amused.
The last man whom I will mention is Carlyle, seen by me several times at my brother's house, and two or three
times at my own house. His talk was very racy and interesting, just like his writings, but he sometimes went
on too long on the same subject. I remember a funny dinner at my brother's, where, amongst a few others,
were Babbage and Lyell, both of whom liked to talk. Carlyle, however, silenced every one by haranguing
during the whole dinner on the advantages of silence. After dinner Babbage, in his grimmest manner, thanked
Carlyle for his very interesting lecture on silence.
Carlyle sneered at almost every one: one day in my house he called Grote's 'History' "a fetid quagmire, with
nothing spiritual about it." I always thought, until his 'Reminiscences' appeared, that his sneers were partly
jokes, but this now seems rather doubtful. His expression was that of a depressed, almost despondent yet
benevolent man; and it is notorious how heartily he laughed. I believe that his benevolence was real, though
stained by not a little jealousy. No one can doubt about his extraordinary power of drawing pictures of things
and men−−far more vivid, as it appears to me, than any drawn by Macaulay. Whether his pictures of men
were true ones is another question.
He has been all−powerful in impressing some grand moral truths on the minds of men. On the other hand, his
views about slavery were revolting. In his eyes might was right. His mind seemed to me a very narrow one;
even if all branches of science, which he despised, are excluded. It is astonishing to me that Kingsley should
have spoken of him as a man well fitted to advance science. He laughed to scorn the idea that a
mathematician, such as Whewell, could judge, as I maintained he could, of Goethe's views on light. He
thought it a most ridiculous thing that any one should care whether a glacier moved a little quicker or a little
slower, or moved at all. As far as I could judge, I never met a man with a mind so ill adapted for scientific
research.
Whilst living in London, I attended as regularly as I could the meetings of several scientific societies, and
acted as secretary to the Geological Society. But such attendance, and ordinary society, suited my health so
badly that we resolved to live in the country, which we both preferred and have never repented of.
RESIDENCE AT DOWN FROM SEPTEMBER 14, 1842, TO THE PRESENT TIME, 1876.
After several fruitless searches in Surrey and elsewhere, we found this house and purchased it. I was pleased
with the diversified appearance of vegetation proper to a chalk district, and so unlike what I had been
accustomed to in the Midland counties; and still more pleased with the extreme quietness and rusticity of the
place. It is not, however, quite so retired a place as a writer in a German periodical makes it, who says that my
house can be approached only by a mule−track! Our fixing ourselves here has answered admirably in one
way, which we did not anticipate, namely, by being very convenient for frequent visits from our children.
Few persons can have lived a more retired life than we have done. Besides short visits to the houses of
relations, and occasionally to the seaside or elsewhere, we have gone nowhere. During the first part of our
residence we went a little into society, and received a few friends here; but my health almost always suffered
from the excitement, violent shivering and vomiting attacks being thus brought on. I have therefore been
compelled for many years to give up all dinner−parties; and this has been somewhat of a deprivation to me, as
such parties always put me into high spirits. From the same cause I have been able to invite here very few
scientific acquaintances.
My chief enjoyment and sole employment throughout life has been scientific work; and the excitement from
such work makes me for the time forget, or drives quite away, my daily discomfort. I have therefore nothing
to record during the rest of my life, except the publication of my several books. Perhaps a few details how
they arose may be worth giving.
MY SEVERAL PUBLICATIONS.
In the early part of 1844, my observations on the volcanic islands visited during the voyage of the "Beagle"
were published. In 1845, I took much pains in correcting a new edition of my 'Journal of Researches,' which
was originally published in 1839 as part of Fitz−Roy's work. The success of this, my first literary child,
always tickles my vanity more than that of any of my other books. Even to this day it sells steadily in England
and the United States, and has been translated for the second time into German, and into French and other
languages. This success of a book of travels, especially of a scientific one, so many years after its first
publication, is surprising. Ten thousand copies have been sold in England of the second edition. In 1846 my
'Geological Observations on South America' were published. I record in a little diary, which I have always
kept, that my three geological books ('Coral Reefs' included) consumed four and a half years' steady work;
"and now it is ten years since my return to England. How much time have I lost by illness?" I have nothing to
say about these three books except that to my surprise new editions have lately been called for. ('Geological
Observations,' 2nd Edit.1876. 'Coral Reefs,' 2nd Edit. 1874.)
In October, 1846, I began to work on 'Cirripedia.' When on the coast of Chile, I found a most curious form,
which burrowed into the shells of Concholepas, and which differed so much from all other Cirripedes that I
had to form a new sub−order for its sole reception. Lately an allied burrowing genus has been found on the
shores of Portugal. To understand the structure of my new Cirripede I had to examine and dissect many of the
common forms; and this gradually led me on to take up the whole group. I worked steadily on this subject for
the next eight years, and ultimately published two thick volumes (Published by the Ray Society.), describing
all the known living species, and two thin quartos on the extinct species. I do not doubt that Sir E. Lytton
Bulwer had me in his mind when he introduced in one of his novels a Professor Long, who had written two
huge volumes on limpets.
Although I was employed during eight years on this work, yet I record in my diary that about two years out of
this time was lost by illness. On this account I went in 1848 for some months to Malvern for hydropathic
treatment, which did me much good, so that on my return home I was able to resume work. So much was I out
of health that when my dear father died on November 13th, 1848, I was unable to attend his funeral or to act
as one of his executors.
My work on the Cirripedia possesses, I think, considerable value, as besides describing several new and
remarkable forms, I made out the homologies of the various parts−−I discovered the cementing apparatus,
though I blundered dreadfully about the cement glands−−and lastly I proved the existence in certain genera of
minute males complemental to and parasitic on the hermaphrodites. This latter discovery has at last been fully
confirmed; though at one time a German writer was pleased to attribute the whole account to my fertile
imagination. The Cirripedes form a highly varying and difficult group of species to class; and my work was of
considerable use to me, when I had to discuss in the 'Origin of Species' the principles of a natural
classification. Nevertheless, I doubt whether the work was worth the consumption of so much time.
>From September 1854 I devoted my whole time to arranging my huge pile of notes, to observing, and to
experimenting in relation to the transmutation of species. During the voyage of the "Beagle" I had been deeply
impressed by discovering in the Pampean formation great fossil animals covered with armour like that on the
existing armadillos; secondly, by the manner in which closely allied animals replace one another in
proceeding southwards over the Continent; and thirdly, by the South American character of most of the
productions of the Galapagos archipelago, and more especially by the manner in which they differ slightly on
each island of the group; none of the islands appearing to be very ancient in a geological sense.
It was evident that such facts as these, as well as many others, could only be explained on the supposition that
species gradually become modified; and the subject haunted me. But it was equally evident that neither the
action of the surrounding conditions, nor the will of the organisms (especially in the case of plants) could
account for the innumerable cases in which organisms of every kind are beautifully adapted to their habits of
life−−for instance, a woodpecker or a tree−frog to climb trees, or a seed for dispersal by hooks or plumes. I
had always been much struck by such adaptations, and until these could be explained it seemed to me almost
useless to endeavour to prove by indirect evidence that species have been modified.
After my return to England it appeared to me that by following the example of Lyell in Geology, and by
collecting all facts which bore in any way on the variation of animals and plants under domestication and
nature, some light might perhaps be thrown on the whole subject. My first note−book was opened in July
1837. I worked on true Baconian principles, and without any theory collected facts on a wholesale scale, more
especially with respect to domesticated productions, by printed enquiries, by conversation with skilful
breeders and gardeners, and by extensive reading. When I see the list of books of all kinds which I read and
abstracted, including whole series of Journals and Transactions, I am surprised at my industry. I soon
perceived that selection was the keystone of man's success in making useful races of animals and plants. But
how selection could be applied to organisms living in a state of nature remained for some time a mystery to
me.
In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic enquiry, I happened to read for
amusement 'Malthus on Population,' and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which
everywhere goes on from long−continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me
that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be
destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here then I had at last got a theory by
which to work; but I was so anxious to avoid prejudice, that I determined not for some time to write even the
briefest sketch of it. In June 1842 I first allowed myself the satisfaction of writing a very brief abstract of my
theory in pencil in 35 pages; and this was enlarged during the summer of 1844 into one of 230 pages, which I
had fairly copied out and still possess.
But at that time I overlooked one problem of great importance; and it is astonishing to me, except on the
principle of Columbus and his egg, how I could have overlooked it and its solution. This problem is the
tendency in organic beings descended from the same stock to diverge in character as they become modified.
That they have diverged greatly is obvious from the manner in which species of all kinds can be classed under
genera, genera under families, families under sub−orders and so forth; and I can remember the very spot in the
road, whilst in my carriage, when to my joy the solution occurred to me; and this was long after I had come to
Down. The solution, as I believe, is that the modified offspring of all dominant and increasing forms tend to
become adapted to many and highly diversified places in the economy of nature.
Early in 1856 Lyell advised me to write out my views pretty fully, and I began at once to do so on a scale
three or four times as extensive as that which was afterwards followed in my 'Origin of Species;' yet it was
only an abstract of the materials which I had collected, and I got through about half the work on this scale. But
my plans were overthrown, for early in the summer of 1858 Mr. Wallace, who was then in the Malay
archipelago, sent me an essay "On the Tendency of Varieties to depart indefinitely from the Original Type;"
and this essay contained exactly the same theory as mine. Mr. Wallace expressed the wish that if I thought
well of his essay, I should sent it to Lyell for perusal.
The circumstances under which I consented at the request of Lyell and Hooker to allow of an abstract from
my MS., together with a letter to Asa Gray, dated September 5, 1857, to be published at the same time with
Wallace's Essay, are given in the 'Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society,' 1858, page 45. I was at
first very unwilling to consent, as I thought Mr. Wallace might consider my doing so unjustifiable, for I did
not then know how generous and noble was his disposition. The extract from my MS. and the letter to Asa
Gray had neither been intended for publication, and were badly written. Mr. Wallace's essay, on the other
hand, was admirably expressed and quite clear. Nevertheless, our joint productions excited very little
attention, and the only published notice of them which I can remember was by Professor Haughton of Dublin,
whose verdict was that all that was new in them was false, and what was true was old. This shows how
necessary it is that any new view should be explained at considerable length in order to arouse public
attention.
In September 1858 I set to work by the strong advice of Lyell and Hooker to prepare a volume on the
transmutation of species, but was often interrupted by ill−health, and short visits to Dr. Lane's delightful
hydropathic establishment at Moor Park. I abstracted the MS. begun on a much larger scale in 1856, and
completed the volume on the same reduced scale. It cost me thirteen months and ten days' hard labour. It was
published under the title of the 'Origin of Species,' in November 1859. Though considerably added to and
corrected in the later editions, it has remained substantially the same book.
It is no doubt the chief work of my life. It was from the first highly successful. The first small edition of 1250
copies was sold on the day of publication, and a second edition of 3000 copies soon afterwards. Sixteen
thousand copies have now (1876) been sold in England; and considering how stiff a book it is, this is a large
sale. It has been translated into almost every European tongue, even into such languages as Spanish,
Bohemian, Polish, and Russian. It has also, according to Miss Bird, been translated into Japanese (Miss Bird
is mistaken, as I learn from Prof. Mitsukuri.−−F.D.), and is there much studied. Even an essay in Hebrew has
appeared on it, showing that the theory is contained in the Old Testament! The reviews were very numerous;
for some time I collected all that appeared on the 'Origin' and on my related books, and these amount
(excluding newspaper reviews) to 265; but after a time I gave up the attempt in despair. Many separate essays
and books on the subject have appeared; and in Germany a catalogue or bibliography on "Darwinismus" has
appeared every year or two.
The success of the 'Origin' may, I think, be attributed in large part to my having long before written two
condensed sketches, and to my having finally abstracted a much larger manuscript, which was itself an
abstract. By this means I was enabled to select the more striking facts and conclusions. I had, also, during
many years followed a golden rule, namely, that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought
came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail and at
once; for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory
than favourable ones. Owing to this habit, very few objections were raised against my views which I had not
at least noticed and attempted to answer.
It has sometimes been said that the success of the 'Origin' proved "that the subject was in the air," or "that
men's minds were prepared for it." I do not think that this is strictly true, for I occasionally sounded not a few
naturalists, and never happened to come across a single one who seemed to doubt about the permanence of
species. Even Lyell and Hooker, though they would listen with interest to me, never seemed to agree. I tried
once or twice to explain to able men what I meant by Natural Selection, but signally failed. What I believe
was strictly true is that innumerable well−observed facts were stored in the minds of naturalists ready to take
their proper places as soon as any theory which would receive them was sufficiently explained. Another
element in the success of the book was its moderate size; and this I owe to the appearance of Mr. Wallace's
essay; had I published on the scale in which I began to write in 1856, the book would have been four or five
times as large as the 'Origin,' and very few would have had the patience to read it.
I gained much by my delay in publishing from about 1839, when the theory was clearly conceived, to 1859;
and I lost nothing by it, for I cared very little whether men attributed most originality to me or Wallace;

and his essay no doubt aided in the reception of the theory. I was forestalled in only one important point, which
my vanity has always made me regret, namely, the explanation by means of the Glacial period of the presence
of the same species of plants and of some few animals on distant mountain summits and in the arctic regions.
This view pleased me so much that I wrote it out in extenso, and I believe that it was read by Hooker some
years before E. Forbes published his celebrated memoir ('Geolog. Survey Mem.,' 1846.) on the subject. In the
very few points in which we differed, I still think that I was in the right. I have never, of course, alluded in
print to my having independently worked out this view.
Hardly any point gave me so much satisfaction when I was at work on the 'Origin,' as the explanation of the
wide difference in many classes between the embryo and the adult animal, and of the close resemblance of the
embryos within the same class. No notice of this point was taken, as far as I remember, in the early reviews of
the 'Origin,' and I recollect expressing my surprise on this head in a letter to Asa Gray. Within late years
several reviewers have given the whole credit to Fritz Muller and Hackel, who undoubtedly have worked it
out much more fully, and in some respects more correctly than I did. I had materials for a whole chapter on
the subject, and I ought to have made the discussion longer; for it is clear that I failed to impress my readers;
and he who succeeds in doing so deserves, in my opinion, all the credit.
This leads me to remark that I have almost always been treated honestly by my reviewers, passing over those
without scientific knowledge as not worthy of notice. My views have often been grossly misrepresented,
bitterly opposed and ridiculed, but this has been generally done, as I believe, in good faith. On the whole I do
not doubt that my works have been over and over again greatly overpraised. I rejoice that I have avoided
controversies, and this I owe to Lyell, who many years ago, in reference to my geological works, strongly
advised me never to get entangled in a controversy, as it rarely did any good and caused a miserable loss of
time and temper.
Whenever I have found out that I have blundered, or that my work has been imperfect, and when I have been
contemptuously criticised, and even when I have been overpraised, so that I have felt mortified, it has been
my greatest comfort to say hundreds of times to myself that "I have worked as hard and as well as I could, and
no man can do more than this." I remember when in Good Success Bay, in Tierra del Fuego, thinking (and, I
believe, that I wrote home to the effect) that I could not employ my life better than in adding a little to Natural
Science. This I have done to the best of my abilities, and critics may say what they like, but they cannot
destroy this conviction.
During the two last months of 1859 I was fully occupied in preparing a second edition of the 'Origin,' and by
an enormous correspondence. On January 1st, 1860, I began arranging my notes for my work on the
'Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication;' but it was not published until the beginning of 1868;
the delay having been caused partly by frequent illnesses, one of which lasted seven months, and partly by
being tempted to publish on other subjects which at the time interested me more.
On May 15th, 1862, my little book on the 'Fertilisation of Orchids,' which cost me ten months' work, was
published: most of the facts had been slowly accumulated during several previous years. During the summer
of 1839, and, I believe, during the previous summer, I was led to attend to the cross−fertilisation of flowers by
the aid of insects, from having come to the conclusion in my speculations on the origin of species, that
crossing played an important part in keeping specific forms constant. I attended to the subject more or less
during every subsequent summer; and my interest in it was greatly enhanced by having procured and read in
November 1841, through the advice of Robert Brown, a copy of C.K. Sprengel's wonderful book, 'Das
entdeckte Geheimniss der Natur.' For some years before 1862 I had specially attended to the fertilisation of
our British orchids; and it seemed to me the best plan to prepare as complete a treatise on this group of plants
as well as I could, rather than to utilise the great mass of matter which I had slowly collected with respect to
other plants.
My resolve proved a wise one; for since the appearance of my book, a surprising number of papers and
separate works on the fertilisation of all kinds of flowers have appeared: and these are far better done than I
could possibly have effected. The merits of poor old Sprengel, so long overlooked, are now fully recognised
many years after his death.
During the same year I published in the 'Journal of the Linnean Society' a paper "On the Two Forms, or
Dimorphic Condition of Primula," and during the next five years, five other papers on dimorphic and
trimorphic plants. I do not think anything in my scientific life has given me so much satisfaction as making
out the meaning of the structure of these plants. I had noticed in 1838 or 1839 the dimorphism of Linum
flavum, and had at first thought that it was merely a case of unmeaning variability. But on examining the
common species of Primula I found that the two forms were much too regular and constant to be thus viewed.
I therefore became almost convinced that the common cowslip and primrose were on the high road to become
dioecious;−−that the short pistil in the one form, and the short stamens in the other form were tending towards
abortion. The plants were therefore subjected under this point of view to trial; but as soon as the flowers with
short pistils fertilised with pollen from the short stamens, were found to yield more seeds than any other of the
four possible unions, the abortion−theory was knocked on the head. After some additional experiment, it
became evident that the two forms, though both were perfect hermaphrodites, bore almost the same relation to
one another as do the two sexes of an ordinary animal. With Lythrum we have the still more wonderful case
of three forms standing in a similar relation to one another. I afterwards found that the offspring from the
union of two plants belonging to the same forms presented a close and curious analogy with hybrids from the
union of two distinct species.
In the autumn of 1864 I finished a long paper on 'Climbing Plants,' and sent it to the Linnean Society. The
writing of this paper cost me four months; but I was so unwell when I received the proof−sheets that I was
forced to leave them very badly and often obscurely expressed. The paper was little noticed, but when in 1875
it was corrected and published as a separate book it sold well. I was led to take up this subject by reading a
short paper by Asa Gray, published in 1858. He sent me seeds, and on raising some plants I was so much
fascinated and perplexed by the revolving movements of the tendrils and stems, which movements are really
very simple, though appearing at first sight very complex, that I procured various other kinds of climbing
plants, and studied the whole subject. I was all the more attracted to it, from not being at all satisfied with the
explanation which Henslow gave us in his lectures, about twining plants, namely, that they had a natural
tendency to grow up in a spire. This explanation proved quite erroneous. Some of the adaptations displayed by
Climbing Plants are as beautiful as those of Orchids for ensuring cross−fertilisation.
My 'Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication' was begun, as already stated, in the beginning of
1860, but was not published until the beginning of 1868. It was a big book, and cost me four years and two
months' hard labour. It gives all my observations and an immense number of facts collected from various
sources, about our domestic productions. In the second volume the causes and laws of variation, inheritance,
etc., are discussed as far as our present state of knowledge permits. Towards the end of the work I give my
well−abused hypothesis of Pangenesis. An unverified hypothesis is of little or no value; but if anyone should
hereafter be led to make observations by which some such hypothesis could be established, I shall have done
good service, as an astonishing number of isolated facts can be thus connected together and rendered
intelligible. In 1875 a second and largely corrected edition, which cost me a good deal of labour, was brought
out.
My 'Descent of Man' was published in February, 1871. As soon as I had become, in the year 1837 or 1838,
convinced that species were mutable productions, I could not avoid the belief that man must come under the
same law. Accordingly I collected notes on the subject for my own satisfaction, and not for a long time with
any intention of publishing. Although in the 'Origin of Species' the derivation of any particular species is
never discussed, yet I thought it best, in order that no honourable man should accuse me of concealing my
views, to add that by the work "light would be thrown on the origin of man and his history." It would have
been useless and injurious to the success of the book to have paraded, without giving any evidence, my
conviction with respect to his origin.
But when I found that many naturalists fully accepted the doctrine of the evolution of species, it seemed to me
advisable to work up such notes as I possessed, and to publish a special treatise on the origin of man. I was the
more glad to do so, as it gave me an opportunity of fully discussing sexual selection−−a subject which had
always greatly interested me. This subject, and that of the variation of our domestic productions, together with
the causes and laws of variation, inheritance, and the intercrossing of plants, are the sole subjects which I have
been able to write about in full, so as to use all the materials which I have collected. The 'Descent of Man'
took me three years to write, but then as usual some of this time was lost by ill health, and some was
consumed by preparing new editions and other minor works. A second and largely corrected edition of the
'Descent' appeared in 1874.
My book on the 'Expression of the Emotions in Men and Animals' was published in the autumn of 1872. I had
intended to give only a chapter on the subject in the 'Descent of Man,' but as soon as I began to put my notes
together, I saw that it would require a separate treatise.
My first child was born on December 27th, 1839, and I at once commenced to make notes on the first dawn of
the various expressions which he exhibited, for I felt convinced, even at this early period, that the most
complex and fine shades of expression must all have had a gradual and natural origin. During the summer of
the following year, 1840, I read Sir C. Bell's admirable work on expression, and this greatly increased the
interest which I felt in the subject, though I could not at all agree with his belief that various muscles had been
specially created for the sake of expression. From this time forward I occasionally attended to the subject,
both with respect to man and our domesticated animals. My book sold largely; 5267 copies having been
disposed of on the day of publication.
In the summer of 1860 I was idling and resting near Hartfield, where two species of Drosera abound; and I
noticed that numerous insects had been entrapped by the leaves. I carried home some plants, and on giving
them insects saw the movements of the tentacles, and this made me think it probable that the insects were
caught for some special purpose. Fortunately a crucial test occurred to me, that of placing a large number of
leaves in various nitrogenous and non−nitrogenous fluids of equal density; and as soon as I found that the
former alone excited energetic movements, it was obvious that here was a fine new field for investigation.
During subsequent years, whenever I had leisure, I pursued my experiments, and my book on 'Insectivorous
Plants' was published in July 1875−−that is, sixteen years after my first observations. The delay in this case,
as with all my other books, has been a great advantage to me; for a man after a long interval can criticise his
own work, almost as well as if it were that of another person. The fact that a plant should secrete, when
properly excited, a fluid containing an acid and ferment, closely analogous to the digestive fluid of an animal,
was certainly a remarkable discovery.
During this autumn of 1876 I shall publish on the 'Effects of Cross and Self−Fertilisation in the Vegetable
Kingdom.' This book will form a complement to that on the 'Fertilisation of Orchids,' in which I showed how
perfect were the means for cross− fertilisation, and here I shall show how important are the results. I was led
to make, during eleven years, the numerous experiments recorded in this volume, by a mere accidental
observation; and indeed it required the accident to be repeated before my attention was thoroughly aroused to
the remarkable fact that seedlings of self−fertilised parentage are inferior, even in the first generation, in
height and vigour to seedlings of cross− fertilised parentage. I hope also to republish a revised edition of my
book on Orchids, and hereafter my papers on dimorphic and trimorphic plants, together with some additional
observations on allied points which I never have had time to arrange. My strength will then probably be
exhausted, and I shall be ready to exclaim "Nunc dimittis."
WRITTEN MAY 1ST, 1881.
'The Effects of Cross and Self−Fertilisation' was published in the autumn of 1876; and the results there arrived
at explain, as I believe, the endless and wonderful contrivances for the transportal of pollen from one plant to
another of the same species. I now believe, however, chiefly from the observations of Hermann Muller, that I
ought to have insisted more strongly than I did on the many adaptations for self−fertilisation; though I was
well aware of many such adaptations. A much enlarged edition of my 'Fertilisation of Orchids' was published
in 1877.
In this same year 'The Different Forms of Flowers, etc.,' appeared, and in 1880 a second edition. This book
consists chiefly of the several papers on Heterostyled flowers originally published by the Linnean Society,
corrected, with much new matter added, together with observations on some other cases in which the same
plant bears two kinds of flowers. As before remarked, no little discovery of mine ever gave me so much
pleasure as the making out the meaning of heterostyled flowers. The results of crossing such flowers in an
illegitimate manner, I believe to be very important, as bearing on the sterility of hybrids; although these
results have been noticed by only a few persons.
In 1879, I had a translation of Dr. Ernst Krause's 'Life of Erasmus Darwin' published, and I added a sketch of
his character and habits from material in my possession. Many persons have been much interested by this little
life, and I am surprised that only 800 or 900 copies were sold.
In 1880 I published, with [my son] Frank's assistance, our 'Power of Movement in Plants.' This was a tough
piece of work. The book bears somewhat the same relation to my little book on 'Climbing Plants,' which
'Cross−Fertilisation' did to the 'Fertilisation of Orchids;' for in accordance with the principle of evolution it
was impossible to account for climbing plants having been developed in so many widely different groups
unless all kinds of plants possess some slight power of movement of an analogous kind. This I proved to be
the case; and I was further led to a rather wide generalisation, viz. that the great and important classes of
movements, excited by light, the attraction of gravity, etc., are all modified forms of the fundamental
movement of circumnutation. It has always pleased me to exalt plants in the scale of organised beings; and I
therefore felt an especial pleasure in showing how many and what admirably well adapted movements the tip
of a root possesses.
I have now (May 1, 1881) sent to the printers the MS. of a little book on 'The Formation of Vegetable Mould,
through the Action of Worms.' This is a subject of but small importance; and I know not whether it will
interest any readers (Between November 1881 and February 1884, 8500 copies have been sold.), but it has
interested me. It is the completion of a short paper read before the Geological Society more than forty years
ago, and has revived old geological thoughts.
I have now mentioned all the books which I have published, and these have been the milestones in my life, so
that little remains to be said. I am not conscious of any change in my mind during the last thirty years,
excepting in one point presently to be mentioned; nor, indeed, could any change have been expected unless
one of general deterioration. But my father lived to his eighty−third year with his mind as lively as ever it
was, and all his faculties undimmed; and I hope that I may die before my mind fails to a sensible extent. I
think that I have become a little more skilful in guessing right explanations and in devising experimental tests;
but this may probably be the result of mere practice, and of a larger store of knowledge. I have as much
difficulty as ever in expressing myself clearly and concisely; and this difficulty has caused me a very great
loss of time; but it has had the compensating advantage of forcing me to think long and intently about every
sentence, and thus I have been led to see errors in reasoning and in my own observations or those of others.
There seems to be a sort of fatality in my mind leading me to put at first my statement or proposition in a
wrong or awkward form. Formerly I used to think about my sentences before writing them down; but for
several years I have found that it saves time to scribble in a vile hand whole pages as quickly as I possibly
can, contracting half the words; and then correct deliberately. Sentences thus scribbled down are often better
ones than I could have written deliberately.
Having said thus much about my manner of writing, I will add that with my large books I spend a good deal
of time over the general arrangement of the matter. I first make the rudest outline in two or three pages, and
then a larger one in several pages, a few words or one word standing for a whole discussion or series of facts.
Each one of these headings is again enlarged and often transferred before I begin to write in extenso. As in
several of my books facts observed by others have been very extensively used, and as I have always had
several quite distinct subjects in hand at the same time, I may mention that I keep from thirty to forty large
portfolios, in cabinets with labelled shelves, into which I can at once put a detached reference or
memorandum. I have bought many books, and at their ends I make an index of all the facts that concern my
work; or, if the book is not my own, write out a separate abstract, and of such abstracts I have a large drawer
full. Before beginning on any subject I look to all the short indexes and make a general and classified index,
and by taking the one or more proper portfolios I have all the information collected during my life ready for
use.
I have said that in one respect my mind has changed during the last twenty or thirty years. Up to the age of
thirty, or beyond it, poetry of many kinds, such as the works of Milton, Gray, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge,
and Shelley, gave me great pleasure, and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight in Shakespeare, especially
in the historical plays. I have also said that formerly pictures gave me considerable, and music very great
delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry: I have tried lately to read
Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost my taste for pictures
or music. Music generally sets me thinking too energetically on what I have been at work on, instead of giving
me pleasure. I retain some taste for fine scenery, but it does not cause me the exquisite delight which it
formerly did. On the other hand, novels which are works of the imagination, though not of a very high order,
have been for years a wonderful relief and pleasure to me, and I often bless all novelists. A surprising number
have been read aloud to me, and I like all if moderately good, and if they do not end unhappily−− against
which a law ought to be passed. A novel, according to my taste, does not come into the first class unless it
contains some person whom one can thoroughly love, and if a pretty woman all the better.
This curious and lamentable loss of the higher aesthetic tastes is all the odder, as books on history,
biographies, and travels (independently of any scientific facts which they may contain), and essays on all sorts
of subjects interest me as much as ever they did. My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for
grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part
of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive. A man with a mind more highly
organised or better constituted than mine, would not, I suppose, have thus suffered; and if I had to live my life
again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for
perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these
tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral
character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.
My books have sold largely in England, have been translated into many languages, and passed through several
editions in foreign countries. I have heard it said that the success of a work abroad is the best test of its
enduring value. I doubt whether this is at all trustworthy; but judged by this standard my name ought to last
for a few years. Therefore it may be worth while to try to analyse the mental qualities and the conditions on
which my success has depended; though I am aware that no man can do this correctly.
I have no great quickness of apprehension or wit which is so remarkable in some clever men, for instance,
Huxley. I am therefore a poor critic: a paper or book, when first read, generally excites my admiration, and it
is only after considerable reflection that I perceive the weak points. My power to follow a long and purely
abstract train of thought is very limited; and therefore I could never have succeeded with metaphysics or
mathematics. My memory is extensive, yet hazy: it suffices to make me cautious by vaguely telling me that I
have observed or read something opposed to the conclusion which I am drawing, or on the other hand in
favour of it; and after a time I can generally recollect where to search for my authority. So poor in one sense is
my memory, that I have never been able to remember for more than a few days a single date or a line of
poetry.
Some of my critics have said, "Oh, he is a good observer, but he has no power of reasoning!" I do not think
that this can be true, for the 'Origin of Species' is one long argument from the beginning to the end, and it has
convinced not a few able men. No one could have written it without having some power of reasoning. I have a
fair share of invention, and of common sense or judgment, such as every fairly successful lawyer or doctor
must have, but not, I believe, in any higher degree.
On the favourable side of the balance, I think that I am superior to the common run of men in noticing things
which easily escape attention, and in observing them carefully. My industry has been nearly as great as it
could have been in the observation and collection of facts. What is far more important, my love of natural
science has been steady and ardent.
This pure love has, however, been much aided by the ambition to be esteemed by my fellow naturalists. From
my early youth I have had the strongest desire to understand or explain whatever I observed,−−that is, to
group all facts under some general laws. These causes combined have given me the patience to reflect or
ponder for any number of years over any unexplained problem. As far as I can judge, I am not apt to follow
blindly the lead of other men. I have steadily endeavoured to keep my mind free so as to give up any
hypothesis, however much beloved (and I cannot resist forming one on every subject), as soon as facts are
shown to be opposed to it. Indeed, I have had no choice but to act in this manner, for with the exception of the
Coral Reefs, I cannot remember a single first−formed hypothesis which had not after a time to be given up or
greatly modified. This has naturally led me to distrust greatly deductive reasoning in the mixed sciences. On
the other hand, I am not very sceptical,−−a frame of mind which I believe to be injurious to the progress of
science. A good deal of scepticism in a scientific man is advisable to avoid much loss of time, but I have met
with not a few men, who, I feel sure, have often thus been deterred from experiment or observations, which
would have proved directly or indirectly serviceable.
In illustration, I will give the oddest case which I have known. A gentleman (who, as I afterwards heard, is a
good local botanist) wrote to me from the Eastern counties that the seed or beans of the common field−bean
had this year everywhere grown on the wrong side of the pod. I wrote back, asking for further information, as
I did not understand what was meant; but I did not receive any answer for a very long time. I then saw in two
newspapers, one published in Kent and the other in Yorkshire, paragraphs stating that it was a most
remarkable fact that "the beans this year had all grown on the wrong side." So I thought there must be some
foundation for so general a statement. Accordingly, I went to my gardener, an old Kentish man, and asked him
whether he had heard anything about it, and he answered, "Oh, no, sir, it must be a mistake, for the beans
grow on the wrong side only on leap−year, and this is not leap−year." I then asked him how they grew in
common years and how on leap−years, but soon found that he knew absolutely nothing of how they grew at
any time, but he stuck to his belief.
After a time I heard from my first informant, who, with many apologies, said that he should not have written
to me had he not heard the statement from several intelligent farmers; but that he had since spoken again to
every one of them, and not one knew in the least what he had himself meant. So that here a belief−−if indeed
a statement with no definite idea attached to it can be called a belief−−had spread over almost the whole of
England without any vestige of evidence.
I have known in the course of my life only three intentionally falsified statements, and one of these may have
been a hoax (and there have been several scientific hoaxes) which, however, took in an American Agricultural
Journal. It related to the formation in Holland of a new breed of oxen by the crossing of distinct species of Bos
(some of which I happen to know are sterile together), and the author had the impudence to state that he had
corresponded with me, and that I had been deeply impressed with the importance of his result. The article was
sent to me by the editor of an English Agricultural Journal, asking for my opinion before republishing it.
A second case was an account of several varieties, raised by the author from several species of Primula, which
had spontaneously yielded a full complement of seed, although the parent plants had been carefully protected
from the access of insects. This account was published before I had discovered the meaning of heterostylism,
and the whole statement must have been fraudulent, or there was neglect in excluding insects so gross as to be
scarcely credible.
The third case was more curious: Mr. Huth published in his book on 'Consanguineous Marriage' some long
extracts from a Belgian author, who stated that he had interbred rabbits in the closest manner for very many
generations, without the least injurious effects. The account was published in a most respectable Journal, that
of the Royal Society of Belgium; but I could not avoid feeling doubts−−I hardly know why, except that there
were no accidents of any kind, and my experience in breeding animals made me think this very improbable.
So with much hesitation I wrote to Professor Van Beneden, asking him whether the author was a trustworthy
man. I soon heard in answer that the Society had been greatly shocked by discovering that the whole account
was a fraud. (The falseness of the published statements on which Mr. Huth relied has been pointed out by
himself in a slip inserted in all the copies of his book which then remained unsold.) The writer had been
publicly challenged in the Journal to say where he had resided and kept his large stock of rabbits while
carrying on his experiments, which must have consumed several years, and no answer could be extracted from
him.
My habits are methodical, and this has been of not a little use for my particular line of work. Lastly, I have
had ample leisure from not having to earn my own bread. Even ill−health, though it has annihilated several
years of my life, has saved me from the distractions of society and amusement.
Therefore my success as a man of science, whatever this may have amounted to, has been determined, as far
as I can judge, by complex and diversified mental qualities and conditions. Of these, the most important have
been−−the love of science−− unbounded patience in long reflecting over any subject−−industry in observing
and collecting facts−−and a fair share of invention as well as of common sense. With such moderate abilities
as I possess, it is truly surprising that I should have influenced to a considerable extent the belief of scientific
men on some important points.

Although in some respects more technical in their subjects and style than Darwin's "Journal," the books here
reprinted will never lose their value and interest for the originality of the observations they contain. Many
parts of them are admirably adapted for giving an insight into problems regarding the structure and changes of
the earth's surface, and in fact they form a charming introduction to physical geology and physiography in
their application to special domains. The books themselves cannot be obtained for many times the price of the
present volume, and both the general reader, who desires to know more of Darwin's work, and the student of
geology, who naturally wishes to know how a master mind reasoned on most important geological subjects,
will be glad of the opportunity of possessing them in a convenient and cheap form.
The three introductions, which my friend Professor Judd has kindly furnished, give critical and historical
information which makes this edition of special value.

Chapter I

Atolls or lagoon - islands
Section 1.I.

Description of keeling atoll. Corals on the outer margin. Zone of Nulliporae. Exterior reef. Islets.Coral−conglomerate. Lagoon. Calcareous sediment. Scari and Holuthuriae subsisting on corals. Changes in the condition of the reefs and islets. Probable subsidence of the atoll. Future state of the lagoon.

Section 1.II

General description of a atolls. General form and size of atolls, their reefs and islets. External slope. Zone of Nulliporae. Conglomerate. Depth of lagoons. Sediment. Reefs submerged wholly or in part. Breaches in the reef. Ledge−formed shores round certain lagoons.Conversion of lagoons into land.

Section 1.III

Atolls of the Maldiva Archipelago−great chagos bank. Maldiva Archipelago. Ring−formed reefs, marginal and central.Great depths in the lagoons of the southern atolls.Reefs in the lagoons all rising to the surface. Position of islets and breaches in the reefs, with respect to the prevalent winds and action of the waves. Destruction of islets. Connection in the position and submarine foundation of distinct atolls.The apparent disseverment of large atolls. The Great Chagosm Bank.Its submerged condition and extraordinary structure.


Chapter II

Barrier reefsa

Closely resemble in general form and structure atoll−reefs. Width and depth of the
lagoon−channels. Breaches through the reef in front of valleys, and generally on the leeward side. Checks
to the filling up of the lagoon−channels. Size and constitution of the encircled islands. Number of islands
within the same reef. Barrier−reefs of New Caledonia and Australia. Position of the reef relative to the
slope of the adjoining land. Probable great thickness of barrier−reefs.


Chapter III

Fringing or shore - reefs

Reefs of Mauritius. Shallow channel within the reef. Its slow filling up. Currents of water formed within it. Upraised reefs. Narrow fringing−reefs in deep seas. Reefs on
the coast of E. Africa and of Brazil. Fringing−reefs in very shallow seas, round banks of sediment and on
worn−down islands. Fringing−reefs affected by currents of the sea. Coral coating the bottom of the se
but not forming reefs.


Chapter IV

On the distribution and growth of coral - reefs.

Section 4.I

On the distribution coral - reefs, and on the conditions favourable to their increase.

Section 4.II

On the rate of growth of coral - reefs.

Section 4.III

On the depths at which reef - building polypifers can live.


Chapter V

Theory of the formation of the different classes of coral - reefs

The atolls of the larger archipelagoes are not formed on submerged craters, or on banks of sediment. Immense areas interspersed with atolls.Recent changes in their state. The origin of barrier - reefs and of atolls. Their relative forms. The step−formed ledges and walls round the shores of some lagoons. The ring−formed reefs of the Maldiva atolls.The submerged condition of parts or of the whole of some annular reefs. The disseverment of large atolls. The union of atolls by linear reefs. The Great Chagos Bank. Objections,from the area and amount of subsidence required by the theory, considered. The probable composition of the lower parts of atolls.


ChapterVI

On the distribution of coral - reefs with reference to the theory of their formation

Description of the coloured map. Proximity of atolls and barrier−reefs. Relation in form
and position of atolls with ordinary islands. Direct evidence of subsidence difficult to be detected. Proofs
of recent elevation where fringing−reefs occur. Oscillations of level. Absence of active volcanoes in the areas of subsidence. Immensity of the areas which have been elevated and have subsided. Their relation to the present distribution of the land. Areas of subsidence elongated, their intersection and alternation with those of elevation. Amount and slow rate of the subsidence. Recapitulation.
Appendix. Containing a detailed description of the reefs and islands in Plate III.

The structure and distribution of coral reefs. Critical introduction.

A scientific discovery is the outcome of an interesting process of evolution in the mind of its author. When we are able to detect the germs of thought in which such a discovery has originated, and to trace the successive stages of the reasoning by which the crude idea has developed into an epoch−making book, we have the materials for reconstructing an important chapter of scientific history. Such a contribution to the story of the "making of science" may be furnished in respect to Darwin's famous theory of coral−reefs, and the clearly reasoned treatise in which it was first fully set forth.
The subject of corals and coral−reefs is one concerning which much popular misconception has always
prevailed. The misleading comparison of coral−rock with the combs of bees and the nests of wasps is perhapsresponsible for much of this misunderstanding; one writer has indeed described a coral−reef as being "built by fishes by means of their teeth." Scarcely less misleading, however, are the references we so frequently meet with, both in prose and verse, to the "skill," "industry," and "perseverance" of the "coral−insect" in "building" his "home." As well might we praise men for their cleverness in making their own skeletons, and laud their assiduity in filling churchyards with the same. The polyps and other organisms, whose remains accumulate to form a coral−reef, simply live and perform their natural functions, and then die, leaving behind them, in the natural course of events, the hard calcareous portions of their structures to add to the growing reef. While the forms of coral−reefs and coral−islands are sometimes very remarkable and worthy of attentive study, there is no ground, it need scarcely be added, for the suggestion that they afford proofs of design on the part of the living builders, or that, in the words of Flinders, they constitute breastworks, defending the workshops from whence "infant colonies might be safely sent forth." It was not till the beginning of the present century that travellers like Beechey, Chamisso, Quoy and Gaimard, Moresby, Nelson, and others, began to collect accurate details concerning the forms and structure of coral−masses, and to make such observations on the habits of reef−forming polyps, as might serve as a basis for safe reasoning concerning the origin of coral−reefs and islands. In the second volume of Lyell's
"Principles of Geology," published in 1832, the final chapter gives an admirable summary of all that was then known on the subject. At that time, the ring−form of the atolls was almost universally regarded as a proof that they had grown up on submerged volcanic craters; and Lyell gave his powerful support to that theory.
Charles Darwin was never tired of acknowledging his indebtedness to Lyell. In dedicating to his friend the
second edition of his "Naturalist's Voyage Round the World," Darwin writes that he does so "with grateful
pleasure, as an acknowledgment that the chief part of whatever scientific merit this journal and the other
works of the author may possess, has been derived from studying the well−known and admirable 'Principles of Geology.'"
The second volume of Lyell's "Principles" appeared after Darwin had left England; but it was doubtless sent on to him without delay by his faithful friend and correspondent, Professor Henslow. It appears to have reached Darwin at a most opportune moment, while, in fact, he was studying the striking evidences of slowa and long−continued, but often interrupted movement on the west coast of South America. Darwin's acute mind could not fail to detect the weakness of the then prevalent theory concerning the origin of the ring−shaped atolls−and the difficulty which he found in accepting the volcanic theory, as an explanation of the phenomena of coral−reefs, is well set forth in his book.
In an interesting fragment of autobiography, Darwin has given us a very clear account of the way in which the leading idea of the theory of coral−reefs originated in his mind; he writes, "No other work of mine was begun in so deductive a spirit as this, for the whole theory was thought out on the west coast of South America, before I had seen a true coral−reef. I had therefore only to verify and extend my views by a careful examination of living reefs. But it should be observed that I had during the two previous years been incessantly attending to the effects on the shores of South America of the intermittent elevation of the land, together with the denudation and deposition of sediment. This necessarily led me to reflect much on the effects of subsidence, and it was easy to replace in imagination the continued deposition of sediment by the upward growth of corals. To do this was to form my theory of the formation of barrier−reefs and atolls."
On her homeward voyage, the "Beagle" visited Tahiti, Australia, and some of the coral−islands in the Indian Ocean, and Darwin had an opportunity of testing and verifying the conclusion at which he had arrived by studying the statements of other observers.
I well recollect a remarkable conversation I had with Darwin, shortly after the death of Lyell. With
characteristic modesty, he told me that he never fully realised the importance of his theory of coral−reefs till he had an opportunity of discussing it with Lyell, shortly after the return of the "Beagle". Lyell, on receiving from the lips of its author a sketch of the new theory, was so overcome with delight that he danced about and threw himself into the wildest contortions, as was his manner when excessively pleased. He wrote shortly afterwards to Darwin as follows:"I could think of nothing for days after your lesson on coral−reefs, but of the tops of submerged continents. It is all true, but do not flatter yourself that you will be believed till you are growing bald like me, with hard work and vexation at the incredulity of the world." On May 24th, 1837, Lyell wrote to Sir John Herschel as follows:−−"I am very full of Darwin's new theory of coral−islands, and have urged Whewell to make him read it at our next meeting. I must give up my volcanic crater forever, though it cost me a pang at first, for it accounted for so much." Dr. Whewell was president of the Geological Society at the time, and on May 31st, 1837, Darwin read a paper entitled "On Certain Areas of Elevation and Subsidence in the Pacific and Indian oceans, as deduced from the Study of Coral Formations," an abstract of which appeared in the second volume of the Society's proceedings.
It was about this time that Darwin, having settled himself in lodgings at Great Marlborough Street,
commenced the writing of his book on "Coral−Reefs." Many delays from ill−health and the interruption of
other work, caused the progress to be slow, and his journal speaks of "recommencing" the subject in February1839, shortly after his marriage, and again in October of the same year. In July 1841, he states that he began once more "after more than thirteen month's interval," and the last proof−sheet of the book was not corrected till May 6th, 1842. Darwin writes in his autobiography, "This book, though a small one, cost me twenty months of hard work, as I had to read every work on the islands of the Pacific, and to consult many charts."
The task of elaborating and writing out his books was, with Darwin, always a very slow and laborious one;
but it is clear that in accomplishing the work now under consideration, there was a long and constant struggle with the lethargy and weakness resulting from the sad condition of his health at that time.
Lyell's anticipation that the theory of coral−reefs would be slow in meeting with general acceptance was
certainly not justified by the actual facts. On the contrary the new book was at once received with general assent among both geologists and zoologists, and even attracted a considerable amount of attention from the general public.
It was not long before the coral−reef theory of Darwin found an able exponent and sturdy champion in the person of the great American naturalist, Professor James D. Dana. Two years after the return of the "Beagle" to England, the ships of the United States Exploring Expedition set sail upon their four years' cruise, under the command of Captain Wilkes, and Dana was a member of the scientific staff. When, in 1839, the expedition arrived at Sydney, a newspaper paragraph was found which gave the American naturalist the first intimation of Darwin's new theory of the origin of atolls and barrier−reefs. Writing in 1872, Dana describes the effect produced on his mind by reading this passage:"The paragraph threw a flood of light over the subject, and called forth feelings of peculiar satisfaction, and of gratefulness to Mr. Darwin, which still come up afresh whenever the subject of coral islands is mentioned. The Gambier Islands in the Paumotus, which gave him the key to the theory, I had not seen; but on reaching the Feejees, six months later, in 1840, I found there similar facts on a still grander scale and of a more diversified character, so that I was afterward enabled to speak of his theory as established with more positiveness than he himself, in his philosophic caution, had been ready to adopt. His work on coral−reefs appeared in 1842, when my report on the subject was already in manuscript. It showed that the conclusions on other points, which we had independently reached, were for the most part the same. The principal points of difference relate to the reason for the absence of corals from some coasts, and the evidence therefrom as to changes of level, and the distribution of the oceanic regions of elevation and subsidence−topics which a wide range of travel over the Pacific brought directly and constantly to my attention."
Among the Reports of the United States Exploring Expedition, two important works from the pen of Professor Dana made their appearance; one on "Zoophytes," which treats at length on "Corals and Coral−Animals," and the other on "Coral−Reefs and Islands." In 1872, Dana prepared a work of a more popular character in which some of the chief results of his studies are described; it bore the title of "Corals and Coral−Islands." Of this work, new and enlarged editions appeared in 1874 and 1890 in America, while two editions were published in this country in 1872 and 1875. In all these works their author, while maintaining an independent judgment on certain matters of detail, warmly defends the views of Darwin on all points essential to the theory.
Another able exponent and illustrator of the theory of coral−reefs was found in Professor J.B. Jukes, who
accompanied H.M.S. "Fly", as naturalist, during the survey of the Great Barrier−Reef−−in the years 1842 to 1846. Jukes, who was a man of great acuteness as well as independence of mind, concludes his account of the great Australian reefs with the following words: "After seeing much of the Great Barrier−Reefs, and reflecting much upon them, and trying if it were possible by any means to evade the conclusions to which Mr.
Darwin has come, I cannot help adding that his hypothesis is perfectly satisfactory to my mind, and rises
beyond a mere hypothesis into the true theory of coral−reefs."
As the result of the clear exposition of the subject by Darwin, Lyell, Dana, and Jukes, the theory of
coral−reefs had, by the middle of the present century, commanded the almost universal assent of both
biologists and geologists. In 1859 Baron von Richthofen brought forward new facts in its support, by showing that the existence of the thick masses of dolomitic limestone in the Tyrol could be best accounted for if they were regarded as of coralline origin and as being formed during a period of long continued subsidence. The same views were maintained by Professor Mojsisovics in his "Dolomit−riffe von Sudtirol und Venetien," which appeared in 1879.
The first serious note of dissent to the generally accepted theory was heard in 1863, when a distinguished German naturalist, Dr. Karl Semper, declared that his study of the Pelew Islands showed that uninterrupted subsidence could not have been going on in that region. Dr. Semper's objections were very carefully considered by Mr. Darwin, and a reply to them appeared in the second and revised edition of his
"Coral−Reefs," which was published in 1874. With characteristic frankness and freedom from prejudice,
Darwin admitted that the facts brought forward by Dr. Semper proved that in certain specified cases,
subsidence could not have played the chief part in originating the peculiar forms of the coral−islands. But
while making this admission, he firmly maintained that exceptional cases, like those described in the Pelew
Islands, were not sufficient to invalidate the theory of subsidence as applied to the widely spread atolls,
encircling reefs, and barrier−reefs of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. It is worthy of note that to the end of his life Darwin maintained a friendly correspondence with Semper concerning the points on which they were at issue.
After the appearance of Semper's work, Dr. J.J. Rein published an account of the Bermudas, in which he
opposed the interpretation of the structure of the islands given by Nelson and other authors, and maintained that the facts observed in them are opposed to the views of Darwin. Although, so far as I am aware, Darwin had no opportunity of studying and considering these particular objections, it may be mentioned that two American geologists have since carefully re−examined the district−Professor W.N. Rice in 1884 and Professor A. Heilprin in 1889−and they have independently arrived at the conclusion that Dr. Rein's objections cannot be maintained.
The most serious opposition to Darwin's coral−reef theory, however, was that which developed itself after the return of H.M.S. "Challenger" from her famous voyage. Mr. John Murray, one of the staff of naturalists on board that vessel, propounded a new theory of coral−reefs, and maintained that the view that they were formed by subsidence was one that was no longer tenable; these objections have been supported by Professor Alexander Agassiz in the United States, and by Dr. A. Geikie, and Dr. H.B. Guppy in this country.
Although Mr. Darwin did not live to bring out a third edition of his "Coral−Reefs," I know from several
conversations with him that he had given the most patient and thoughtful consideration to Mr. Murray's paper on the subject. He admitted to me that had he known, when he wrote his work, of the abundant deposition of the remains of calcareous organisms on the sea floor, he might have regarded this cause as sufficient in a few cases to raise the summits of submerged volcanoes or other mountains to a level at which reef−forming corals can commence to flourish. But he did not think that the admission that under certain favourable conditions, atolls might be thus formed without subsidence, necessitated an abandonment of his theory in the case of the innumerable examples of the kind which stud the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
A letter written by Darwin to Professor Alexander Agassiz in May 1881 shows exactly the attitude which
careful consideration of the subject led him to maintain towards the theory propounded by Mr.
Murray:−−"You will have seen," he writes, "Mr. Murray's views on the formation of atolls and barrier−reefs.
Before publishing my book, I thought long over the same view, but only as far as ordinary marine organisms are concerned, for at that time little was known of the multitude of minute oceanic organisms. I rejected this view, as from the few dredgings made in the "Beagle", in the south temperate regions, I concluded that shells, the smaller corals, etc., decayed and were dissolved when not protected by the deposition of sediment, and sediment could not accumulate in the open ocean. Certainly, shells, etc., were in several cases completely rotten, and crumbled into mud between my fingers; but you will know whether this is in any degree common.
I have expressly said that a bank at the proper depth would give rise to an atoll, which could not be
distinguished from one formed during subsidence. I can, however, hardly believe in the existence of as many banks (there having been no subsidence) as there are atolls in the great oceans, within a reasonable depth, on which minute oceanic organisms could have accumulated to the depth of many hundred feet."
Darwin's concluding words in the same letter written within a year of his death, are a striking proof of the
candour and openness of mind which he preserved so well to the end, in this as in other controversies.
"If I am wrong, the sooner I am knocked on the head and annihilated so much the better. It still seems to me a marvellous thing that there should not have been much, and long−continued, subsidence in the beds of the great oceans. I wish some doubly rich millionaire would take it into his head to have borings made in some of the Pacific and Indian atolls, and bring home cores for slicing from a depth of 500 or 600 feet." It is noteworthy that the objections to Darwin's theory have for the most part proceeded from zoologists, while those who have fully appreciated the geological aspect of the question, have been the staunchest supporters of the theory of subsidence. The desirability of such boring operations in atolls has been insisted upon by several geologists, and it may be hoped that before many years have passed away, Darwin's hopes may be realised, either with or without the intervention of the "doubly rich millionaire."
Three years after the death of Darwin, the veteran Professor Dana re−entered the lists and contributed a
powerful defence of the theory of subsidence in the form of a reply to an essay written by the ablest exponent of the anti−Darwinian views on this subject, Dr. A. Geikie. While pointing out that the Darwinian position had been to a great extent misunderstood by its opponents, he showed that the rival theory presented even greater difficulties than those which it professed to remove.
During the last five years, the whole question of the origin of coral−reefs and islands has been re−opened, and a controversy has arisen, into which, unfortunately, acrimonious elements have been very unnecessarily introduced. Those who desire it, will find clear and impartial statements of the varied and often mutually destructive views put forward by different authors, in three works which have made their appearance within the last year, "The Bermuda Islands," by Professor Angelo Heilprin; "Corals and Coral−Islands," new edition by Professor J.D. Dana; and the third edition of Darwin's "Coral−Reefs," with Notes and Appendix by Professor T.G. Bonney.
Most readers will, I think, rise from the perusal of these works with the conviction that, while on certain
points of detail it is clear that, through the want of knowledge concerning the action of marine organisms in the open ocean, Darwin was betrayed into some grave errors, yet the main foundations of his argument have not been seriously impaired by the new facts observed in the deep−sea researches, or by the severe criticism to which his theory has been subjected during the last ten years. On the other hand, I think it will appear that much misapprehension has been exhibited by some of Darwin's critics, as to what his views and arguments really were; so that the reprint and wide circulation of the book in its original form is greatly to be desired, and cannot but be attended with advantage to all those who will have the fairness to acquaint themselves with Darwin's views at first hand, before attempting to reply to them.


John W. Judd
Coral−Reefs

The object of this volume is to describe from my own observation and the works of others, the principal kinds of coral−reefs, more especially those occurring in the open ocean, and to explain the origin of their peculiar forms. I do not here treat of the polypifers, which construct these vast works, except so far as relates to their distribution, and to the conditions favourable to their vigorous growth. Without any distinct intention to classify coral−reefs, most voyagers have spoken of them under the following heads: "lagoon−islands," or "atolls," "barrier" or "encircling reefs," and "fringing" or "shore−reefs." The lagoon−islands have received much the most attention; and it is not surprising, for every one must be struck with astonishment, when he first beholds one of these vast rings of coral−rock, often many leagues in diameter, here and there surmounted by a low verdant island with dazzling white shores, bathed on the outside by the foaming breakers of the ocean, and on the inside surrounding a calm expanse of water, which from reflection, is of a bright but pale green colour. The naturalist will feel this astonishment more deeply after having examined the soft and almost gelatinous bodies of these apparently insignificant creatures, and when he knows that the solid reef increases
only on the outer edge, which day and night is lashed by the breakers of an ocean never at rest. Well did
Francois Pyrard de Laval, in the year 1605, exclaim, "C'est une merueille de voir chacun de ces atollons,
enuironne d'un grand banc de pierre tout autour, n'y ayant point d'artifice humain." The accompanying sketch of Whitsunday island, in the South Pacific, taken from Captain Beechey's admirable "Voyage," although excellent of its kind, gives but a faint idea of the singular aspect of one of these lagoon−islands.
(PLATE: UNTITLED WOODCUT, WHITSUNDAY ATOLL.)
Whitsunday Island is of small size, and the whole circle has been converted into land, which is a
comparatively rare circumstance. As the reef of a lagoon−island generally supports many separate small
islands, the word "island," applied to the whole, is often the cause of confusion; hence I have invariably used in this volume the term "atoll," which is the name given to these circular groups of coral−islets by their inhabitants in the Indian Ocean, and is synonymous with "lagoon−island."
(PLATE: UNTITLED WOODCUT, REEF AT BOLABOLA ISLAND.)
Barrier−reefs, when encircling small islands, have been comparatively little noticed by voyagers; but they
well deserve attention. In their structure they are little less marvellous than atolls, and they give a singular andmost picturesque character to the scenery of the islands they surround. In the accompanying sketch, taken from the "Voyage of the 'Coquille'," the reef is seen from within, from one of the high peaks of the island of Bolabola. (I have taken the liberty of simplifying the foreground, and leaving out a mountainous island in the far distance.) Here, as in Whitsunday Island, the whole of that part of the reef which is visible is converted into land. This is a circumstance of rare occurrence; more usually a snow−white line of great breakers, with here and there an islet crowned by cocoa−nut trees, separates the smooth waters of the lagoon−like channel from the waves of the open sea. The barrier−reefs of Australia and of New Caledonia, owing to their enormous dimensions, have excited much attention: in structure and form they resemble those encircling many of the smaller islands in the Pacific Ocean.
With respect to fringing, or shore−reefs, there is little in their structure which needs explanation; and their name expresses their comparatively small extension. They differ from barrier−reefs in not lying so far from the shore, and in not having within a broad channel of deep water. Reefs also occur around submerged banks of sediment and of worn−down rock; and others are scattered quite irregularly where the sea is very shallow; these in most respects are allied to those of the fringing class, but they are of comparatively little interest.
I have given a separate chapter to each of the above classes, and have described some one reef or island, on which I possessed most information, as typical; and have afterwards compared it with others of a like kind.
Although this classification is useful from being obvious, and from including most of the coral−reefs existing
in the open sea, it admits of a more fundamental division into barrier and atoll−formed reefs on the one hand, where there is a great apparent difficulty with respect to the foundation on which they must first have grown; and into fringing−reefs on the other, where, owing to the nature of the slope of the adjoining land, there is no such difficulty. The two blue tints and the red colour (replaced by numbers in this edition.) on the map (Plate III.), represent this main division, as explained in the beginning of the last chapter. In the Appendix, every existing coral−reef, except some on the coast of Brazil not included in the map, is briefly described in geographical order, as far as I possessed information; and any particular spot may be found by consulting the
Several theories have been advanced to explain the origin of atolls or lagoon−islands, but scarcely one to
account for barrier−reefs. From the limited depths at which reef−building polypifers can flourish, taken into consideration with certain other circumstances, we are compelled to conclude, as it will be seen, that both in atolls and barrier−reefs, the foundation on which the coral was primarily attached, has subsided; and that during this downward movement, the reefs have grown upwards. This conclusion, it will be further seen, explains most satisfactorily the outline and general form of atolls and barrier−reefs, and likewise certain peculiarities in their structure. The distribution, also, of the different kinds of coral−reefs, and their position with relation to the areas of recent elevation, and to the points subject to volcanic eruptions, fully accord with this theory of their origin. (A brief account of my views on coral formations, now published in my Journal of Researches, was read May 31st, 1837, before the Geological Society, and an abstract has appeared in the Proceedings.)
(DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES.PLATE I.−−MAP SHOWING THE RESEMBLANCE IN FORM BETWEEN BARRIER CORAL−REEFS SURROUNDING MOUNTAINOUS ISLANDS, AND ATOLLS OR LAGOON ISLANDS.)
In the several original surveys, from which the small plans on this plate have been reduced, the coral−reefs are engraved in very different styles. For the sake of uniformity, I have adopted the style used in the charts of the Chagos Archipelago, published by the East Indian Company, from the survey by Captain Moresby and Lieutenant Powell. The surface of the reef, which dries at low water, is represented by a surface with small crosses: the coral−islets on the reef are marked by small linear spaces, on which a few cocoa−nut trees, out of all proportion too large, have been introduced for the sake of clearness. The entire ANNULAR REEF, which when surrounding an open expanse of water, forms an "atoll," and when surrounding one or more high islands, forms an encircling "barrier−reef," has a nearly uniform structure. The reefs in some of the original surveys are represented merely by a single line with crosses, so that their breadth is not given; I have had such reefs engraved of the width usually attained by coral−reefs. I have not thought it worth while to introduce all those small and very numerous reefs, which occur within the lagoons of most atolls and within the lagoon−channels of most barrier−reefs, and which stand either isolated, or are attached to the shores of the reef or land. At Peros Banhos none of the lagoon−reefs rise to the surface of the water; a few of them have been introduced, and are marked by plain dotted circles. A few of the deepest soundings are laid down within each reef; they are in fathoms, of six English feet.

Figure 1.VANIKORO, situated in the western part of the South Pacific; taken from the survey by Captain
D'Urville in the "Astrolabe;" the soundings on the southern side of the island, namely, from thirty to forty
fathoms, are given from the voyage of the Chev. Dillon; the other soundings are laid down from the survey by D'Urville; height of the summit of the island is 3,032 feet. The principal small detached reefs within the lagoon−channel have in this instance been represented. The southern shore of the island is narrowly fringed by a reef: if the engraver had carried this reef entirely round both islands, this figure would have served (by leaving out in imagination the barrier−reef) as a good specimen of an abruptly−sided island, surrounded by a reef of the fringing class.

Figure 2.HOGOLEU, or ROUG, in the Caroline Archipelago; taken from the "Atlas of the Voyage of the
'Astrolabe,'" compiled from the surveys of Captains Duperrey and D'Urville; the depth of the immense
lagoon−like space within the reef is not known.

Figure 3.RAIATEA, in the Society Archipelago; from the map given in the quarto edition of "Cook's First
Voyage;" it is probably not accurate.

Figure 4.BOW, or HEYOU ATOLL (or lagoon−island), in the Low Archipelago, from the survey by
Captain Beechey, R.N.; the lagoon is choked up with reefs, but the average greatest depth of about twenty
fathoms, is given from the published account of the voyage.

Figure 5.BOLABOLA, in the Society Archipelago, from the survey of Captain Duperrey in the "Coquille:"
the soundings in this and the following figures have been altered from French feet to English fathoms; height
of highest point of the island 4,026 feet.

Figure 6.MAURUA, in the Society Archipelago; from the survey by Captain Duperrey in the "Coquille:"
height of land about eight hundred feet.

Figure 7.POUYNIPETE, or SENIAVINE, in the Caroline Archipelago; from the survey by Admiral Lutke.

Figure 8.GAMBIER ISLANDS, in the southern part of the Low Archipelago; from the survey by Captain
Beechey; height of highest island, 1,246 feet; the islands are surrounded by extensive and irregular reefs; the
reef on the southern side is submerged.

Figure 9.PEROS BANHOS ATOLL (or lagoon−island), in the Chagos group in the Indian Ocean; from the
survey by Captain Moresby and Lieutenant Powell; not nearly all the small submerged reefs in the lagoon are
represented; the annular reef on the southern side is submerged.

Figure 10.KEELING, or COCOS ATOLL (or lagoon−island), in the Indian Ocean; from the survey by
Captain Fitzroy; the lagoon south of the dotted line is very shallow, and is left almost bare at low water; the part north of the line is choked up with irregular reefs. The annular reef on the north−west side is broken, and blends into a shoal sandbank, on which the sea breaks.

Chapter I

Atolls or lagoon - islands

Section 1.IKeeling atoll

Corals on the outer margin.Zone of Nulliporae.Exterior reef.Islets.Coral−conglomerate.Lagoon.Calcareous sediment.Scari and Holuthuriae subsisting on corals.Changes in the condition of the reefs and islets.Probable subsidence of the atoll.Future state of the lagoon.
(PLATE: UNTITLED WOODCUT, VERTICAL SECTION THROUGH KEELING ATOLL.)

A.− Level of the sea at low water: where the letter A is placed, the depth is twenty−five fathoms, and the
distance rather more than one hundred and fifty yards from the edge of the reef.

B.− Outer edge of that flat part of the reef, which dries at low water: the edge either consists of a convex
mound, as represented, or of rugged points, like those a little farther seaward, beneath the water.

C.− A flat of coral−rock, covered at high water.

D.− A low projecting ledge of brecciated coral−rock washed by the waves at high water.

E.− A slope of loose fragments, reached by the sea only during gales: the upper part, which is from six to
twelve feet high, is clothed with vegetation. The surface of the islet gently slopes to the lagoon.

F.− Level of the lagoon at low water.
KEELING or COCOS atoll is situated in the Indian Ocean, in 12 deg 5' S., and longitude 90 deg 55' E.: a
reduced chart of it was made from the survey of Captain Fitzroy and the Officers of H.M.S. "Beagle," is given
in Plate I., Figure 10. The greatest width of this atoll is nine miles and a half. Its structure is in most respects
characteristic of the class to which it belongs, with the exception of the shallowness of the lagoon. The
accompanying woodcut represents a vertical section, supposed to be drawn at low water from the outer coast
across one of the low islets (one being taken of average dimensions) to within the lagoon.
The section is true to the scale in a horizontal line, but it could not be made so in a vertical one, as the average
greatest height of the land is only between six and twelve feet above high−water mark.
I will describe the section, commencing with the outer margin. I must first observe that the reef−building
polypifers, not being tidal animals, require to be constantly submerged or washed by the breakers. I was
assured by Mr. Liesk, a very intelligent resident on these islands, as well as by some chiefs at Tahiti
(Otaheite), that an exposure to the rays of the sun for a very short time invariably causes their destruction.
Hence it is possible only under the most favourable circumstances, afforded by an unusually low tide and
smooth water, to reach the outer margin, where the coral is alive. I succeeded only twice in gaining this part,
and found it almost entirely composed of a living Porites, which forms great irregularly rounded masses (like
those of an Astraea, but larger) from four to eight feet broad, and little less in thickness. These mounds are
separated from each other by narrow crooked channels, about six feet deep, most of which intersect the line of
reef at right angles. On the furthest mound, which I was able to reach by the aid of a leaping−pole, and over
which the sea broke with some violence, although the day was quite calm and the tide low, the polypifers in
the uppermost cells were all dead, but between three and four inches lower down on its side they were living,
and formed a projecting border round the upper and dead surface. The coral being thus checked in its upward
growth, extends laterally, and hence most of the masses, especially those a little further inwards, had broad
flat dead summits. On the other hand I could see, during the recoil of the breakers, that a few yards further
seaward, the whole convex surface of the Porites was alive; so that the point where we were standing was
almost on the exact upward and shoreward limit of existence of those corals which form the outer margin of
the reef. We shall presently see that there are other organic productions, fitted to bear a somewhat longer
exposure to the air and sun.
Next, but much inferior in importance to the Porites, is the Millepora complanata. (This Millepora (Palmipora
of Blainville), as well as the M. alcicornis, possesses the singular property of stinging the skin where it is
delicate, as on the face and arm.)
It grows in thick vertical plates, intersecting each other at various angles, and forms an exceedingly strong
honeycombed mass, which generally affects a circular form, the marginal plates alone being alive. Between
these plates and in the protected crevices on the reef, a multitude of branching zoophytes and other
productions flourish, but the Porites and Millepora alone seem able to resist the fury of the breakers on its
upper and outer edge: at the depth of a few fathoms other kinds of stony corals live. Mr. Liesk, who was
intimately acquainted with every part of this reef, and likewise with that of North Keeling atoll, assured me
that these corals invariably compose the outer margin. The lagoon is inhabited by quite a distinct set of corals,
generally brittle and thinly branched; but a Porites, apparently of the same species with that on the outside, is
found there, although it does not seem to thrive, and certainly does not attain the thousandth part in bulk of the
masses opposed to the breakers.
The woodcut shows the form of the bottom off the reef: the water deepens for a space between one and two
hundred yards wide, very gradually to twenty−five fathoms (A in section), beyond which the sides plunge into
the unfathomable ocean at an angle of 45 deg. (The soundings from which this section is laid down were taken
with great care by Captain Fitzroy himself. He used a bell−shaped lead, having a diameter of four inches, and
the armings each time were cut off and brought on board for me to examine. The arming is a preparation of
tallow, placed in the concavity at the bottom of the lead. Sand, and even small fragments of rock, will adhere
to it; and if the bottom be of rock it brings up an exact impression of its surface.) To the depth of ten or twelve
fathoms the bottom is exceedingly rugged, and seems formed of great masses of living coral, similar to those
on the margin. The arming of the lead here invariably came up quite clean, but deeply indented, and chains
and anchors which were lowered, in the hopes of tearing up the coral, were broken. Many small fragments,
however, of Millepora alcicornis were brought up; and on the arming from an eight−fathom cast, there was a
perfect impression of an Astraea, apparently alive. I examined the rolled fragments cast on the beach during
gales, in order further to ascertain what corals grew outside the reef. The fragments consisted of many kinds,
of which the Porites already mentioned and a Madrepora, apparently the M. corymbosa, were the most
abundant. As I searched in vain in the hollows on the reef and in the lagoon, for a living specimen of this
Madrepore, I conclude that it is confined to a zone outside, and beneath the surface, where it must be very
abundant. Fragments of the Millepora alcicornis and of an Astraea were also numerous; the former is found,
but not in proportionate numbers, in the hollows on the reef; but the Astraea I did not see living. Hence we
may infer, that these are the kinds of coral which form the rugged sloping surface (represented in the woodcut
by an uneven line), round and beneath the external margin. Between twelve and twenty fathoms the arming
came up an equal number of times smoothed with sand, and indented with coral: an anchor and lead were lost
at the respective depths of thirteen and sixteen fathoms. Out of twenty−five soundings taken at a greater depth
than twenty fathoms, every one showed that the bottom was covered with sand; whereas, at a less depth than
twelve fathoms, every sounding showed that it was exceedingly rugged, and free from all extraneous particles.
Two soundings were obtained at the depth of 360 fathoms, and several between two hundred and three
hundred fathoms. The sand brought up from these depths consisted of finely triturated fragments of stony
zoophytes, but not, as far as I could distinguish, of a particle of any lamelliform genus: fragments of shells
were rare.
At a distance of 2,200 yards from the breakers, Captain Fitzroy found no bottom with a line of 7,200 feet in
length; hence the submarine slope of this coral formation is steeper than that of any volcanic cone. Off the
mouth of the lagoon, and likewise off the northern point of the atoll, where the currents act violently, the
inclination, owing to the accumulation of sediment, is less. As the arming of the lead from all the greater
depths showed a smooth sandy bottom, I at first concluded that the whole consisted of a vast conical pile of
calcareous sand, but the sudden increase of depth at some points, and the circumstance of the line having been
cut, as if rubbed, when between five hundred and six hundred fathoms were out, indicate the probable
existence of submarine cliffs.
On the margin of the reef, close within the line where the upper surface of the Porites and of the Millepora is
dead, three species of Nullipora flourish. One grows in thin sheets, like a lichen on old trees; the second in
stony knobs, as thick as a man's finger, radiating from a common centre; and the third, which is less common,
in a moss−like reticulation of thin, but perfectly rigid branches. (This last species is of a beautiful bright
peach−blossom colour. Its branches are about as thick as crow−quills; they are slightly flattened and knobbed
at the extremities. The extremities only are alive and brightly coloured. The two other species are of a dirty
purplish−white. The second species is extremely hard; its short knob−like branches are cylindrical, and do not
grow thicker at their extremities.) The three species occur either separately or mingled together; and they form
by their successive growth a layer two or three feet in thickness, which in some cases is hard, but where
formed of the lichen−like kind, readily yields an impression to the hammer: the surface is of a reddish colour.
These Nulliporae, although able to exist above the limit of true corals, seem to require to be bathed during the
greater part of each tide by breaking water, for they are not found in any abundance in the protected hollows
on the back part of the reef, where they might be immersed either during the whole or an equal proportional
time of each tide. It is remarkable that organic productions of such extreme simplicity, for the Nulliporae
undoubtedly belong to one of the lowest classes of the vegetable kingdom, should be limited to a zone so
peculiarly circumstanced. Hence the layer composed by their growth merely fringes the reef for a space of
about twenty yards in width, either under the form of separate mammillated projections, where the outer
masses of coral are separate, or, more commonly, where the corals are united into a solid margin, as a
continuous smooth convex mound (B in woodcut), like an artificial breakwater. Both the mound and
mammillated projections stand about three feet higher than any other part of the reef, by which term I do not
include the islets, formed by the accumulation of rolled fragments. We shall hereafter see that other coral reefs
are protected by a similar thick growth of Nulliporae on the outer margin, the part most exposed to the
breakers, and this must effectually aid in preserving it from being worn down.
The woodcut represents a section across one of the islets on the reef, but if all that part which is above the
level of C were removed, the section would be that of a simple reef, as it occurs where no islet has been
formed. It is this reef which essentially forms the atoll. It is a ring, enclosing the lagoon on all sides except at
the northern end, where there are two open spaces, through one of which ships can enter. The reef varies in
width from two hundred and fifty to five hundred yards, its surface is level, or very slightly inclined towards
the lagoon, and at high tide the sea breaks entirely over it: the water at low tide thrown by the breakers on the
reef, is carried by the many narrow and shoal gullies or channels on its surface, into the lagoon: a return
stream sets out of the lagoon through the main entrance. The most frequent coral in the hollows on the reef is
Pocillopora verrucosa, which grows in short sinuous plates, or branches, and when alive is of a beautiful pale
lake−red: a Madrepora, closely allied or identical with M. pocillifera, is also common. As soon as an islet is
formed, and the waves are prevented breaking entirely over the reef, the channels and hollows in it become
filled up with cemented fragments, and its surface is converted into a hard smooth floor (C of woodcut), like
an artificial one of freestone. This flat surface varies in width from one hundred to two hundred, or even three
hundred yards, and is strewed with a few large fragments of coral torn up during gales: it is uncovered only at
low water. I could with difficulty, and only by the aid of a chisel, procure chips of rock from its surface, and
therefore could not ascertain how much of it is formed by the aggregation of detritus, and how much by the
outward growth of mounds of corals, similar to those now living on the margin. Nothing can be more singular
than the appearance at low tide of this "flat" of naked stone, especially where it is externally bounded by the
smooth convex mound of Nulliporae, appearing like a breakwater built to resist the waves, which are
constantly throwing over it sheets of foaming water. The characteristic appearance of this "flat" is shown in
the foregoing woodcut of Whitsunday atoll.
The islets on the reef are first formed between two hundred and three hundred yards from its outer edge,
through the accumulation of a pile of fragments, thrown together by some unusually strong gale. Their
ordinary width is under a quarter of a mile, and their length varies from a few yards to several miles. Those on
the south−east and windward side of the atoll, increase solely by the addition of fragments on their outer side;
hence the loose blocks of coral, of which their surface is composed, as well as the shells mingled with them,
almost exclusively consist of those kinds which live on the outer coast. The highest part of the islets
(excepting hillocks of blown sand, some of which are thirty feet high), is close to the outer beach (E of the
woodcut), and averages from six to ten feet above ordinary high−water mark. From the outer beach the
surface slopes gently to the shores of the lagoon, which no doubt has been caused by the breakers the further
they have rolled over the reef, having had less power to throw up fragments. The little waves of the lagoon
heap up sand and fragments of thinly−branched corals on the inner side of the islets on the leeward side of the
atoll; and these islets are broader than those to windward, some being even eight hundred yards in width; but
the land thus added is very low. The fragments beneath the surface are cemented into a solid mass, which is
exposed as a ledge (D of the woodcut), projecting some yards in front of the outer shore and from two to four
feet high. This ledge is just reached by the waves at ordinary high−water: it extends in front of all the islets,
and everywhere has a water−worn and scooped appearance. The fragments of coral which are occasionally
cast on the "flat" are during gales of unusual violence swept together on the beach, where the waves each day
at high−water tend to remove and gradually wear them down; but the lower fragments having become firmly
cemented together by the percolation of calcareous matter, resist the daily tides longer, and hence project as a
ledge. The cemented mass is generally of a white colour, but in some few parts reddish from ferruginous
matter; it is very hard, and is sonorous under the hammer; it is obscurely divided by seams, dipping at a small
angle seaward; it consists of fragments of the corals which grow on the outer margin, some quite and others
partially rounded, some small and others between two and three feet across; and of masses of previously
formed conglomerate, torn up, rounded, and re−cemented; or it consists of a calcareous sandstone, entirely
composed of rounded particles, generally almost blended together, of shells, corals, the spines of echini, and
other such organic bodies; rocks, of this latter kind, occur on many shores, where there are no coral reefs. The
structure of the coral in the conglomerate has generally been much obscured by the infiltration of spathose
calcareous matter; and I collected a very interesting series, beginning with fragments of unaltered coral, and
ending with others, where it was impossible to discover with the naked eye any trace of organic structure. In
some specimens I was unable, even with the aid of a lens, and by wetting them, to distinguish the boundaries
of the altered coral and spathose limestone. Many even of the blocks of coral lying loose on the beach, had
their central parts altered and infiltrated.
The lagoon alone remains to be described; it is much shallower than that of most atolls of considerable size.
The southern part is almost filled up with banks of mud and fields of coral, both dead and alive, but there are
considerable spaces, between three and four fathoms, and smaller basins, from eight to ten fathoms deep.
Probably about half its area consists of sediment, and half of coral−reefs. The corals composing these reefs
have a very different aspect from those on the outside; they are very numerous in kind, and most of them are
thinly branched. Meandrina, however, lives in the lagoon, and great rounded masses of this coral are
numerous, lying quite or almost loose on the bottom. The other commonest kinds consist of three closely
allied species of true Madrepora in thin branches; of Seriatapora subulata; two species of Porites (This Porites
has somewhat the habit of P. clavaria, but the branches are not knobbed at their ends. When alive it is of a
yellow colour, but after having been washed in fresh water and placed to dry, a jet−black slimy substance
exuded from the entire surface, so that the specimen now appears as if it had been dipped in ink.) with
cylindrical branches, one of which forms circular clumps, with the exterior branches only alive; and lastly, a
coral something like an Explanaria, but with stars on both surfaces, growing in thin, brittle, stony, foliaceous
expansions, especially in the deeper basins of the lagoon. The reefs on which these corals grow are very
irregular in form, are full of cavities, and have not a solid flat surface of dead rock, like that surrounding the
lagoon; nor can they be nearly so hard, for the inhabitants made with crowbars a channel of considerable
length through these reefs, in which a schooner, built on the S.E. islet, was floated out. It is a very interesting
circumstance, pointed out to us by Mr. Liesk, that this channel, although made less than ten years before our
visit, was then, as we saw, almost choked up with living coral, so that fresh excavations would be absolutely
necessary to allow another vessel to pass through it.
The sediment from the deepest parts in the lagoon, when wet, appeared chalky, but when dry, like very fine
sand. Large soft banks of similar, but even finer grained mud, occur on the S.E. shore of the lagoon, affording
a thick growth of a Fucus, on which turtle feed: this mud, although discoloured by vegetable matter, appears
from its entire solution in acids to be purely calcareous. I have seen in the Museum of the Geological Society,
a similar but more remarkable substance, brought by Lieutenant Nelson from the reefs of Bermuda, which,
when shown to several experienced geologists, was mistaken by them for true chalk. On the outside of the reef
much sediment must be formed by the action of the surf on the rolled fragments of coral; but in the calm
waters of the lagoon, this can take place only in a small degree. There are, however, other and unexpected
agents at work here: large shoals of two species of Scarus, one inhabiting the surf outside the reef and the
other the lagoon, subsist entirely, as I was assured by Mr. Liesk, the intelligent resident before referred to, by
browsing on the living polypifers. I opened several of these fish, which are very numerous and of considerable
size, and I found their intestines distended by small pieces of coral, and finely ground calcareous matter. This
must daily pass from them as the finest sediment; much also must be produced by the infinitely numerous
vermiform and molluscous animals, which make cavities in almost every block of coral. Dr. J. Allan, of
Forres, who has enjoyed the best means of observation, informs me in a letter that the Holothuriae (a family of
Radiata) subsist on living coral; and the singular structure of bone within the anterior extremity of their
bodies, certainly appears well adapted for this purpose. The number of the species of Holothuria, and of the
individuals which swarm on every part of these coral−reefs, is extraordinarily great; and many shiploads are
annually freighted, as is well−known, for China with the trepang, which is a species of this genus. The amount
of coral yearly consumed, and ground down into the finest mud, by these several creatures, and probably by
many other kinds, must be immense. These facts are, however, of more importance in another point of view,
as showing us that there are living checks to the growth of coral−reefs, and that the almost universal law of
"consumed and be consumed," holds good even with the polypifers forming those massive bulwarks, which
are able to withstand the force of the open ocean.
Considering that Keeling atoll, like other coral formations, has been entirely formed by the growth of organic
beings, and the accumulation of their detritus, one is naturally led to inquire how long it has continued, and
how long it is likely to continue, in its present state. Mr. Liesk informed me that he had seen an old chart in
which the present long island on the S.E. side was divided by several channels into as many islets; and he
assures me that the channels can still be distinguished by the smaller size of the trees on them. On several
islets, also, I observed that only young cocoa−nut trees were growing on the extremities; and that older and
taller trees rose in regular succession behind them; which shows that these islets have very lately increased in
length. In the upper and south−eastern part of the lagoon, I was much surprised by finding an irregular field of
at least a mile square of branching corals, still upright, but entirely dead. They consisted of the species already
mentioned; they were of a brown colour, and so rotten, that in trying to stand on them I sank halfway up the
leg, as if through decayed brushwood. The tops of the branches were barely covered by water at the time of
lowest tide. Several facts having led me to disbelieve in any elevation of the whole atoll, I was at first unable
to imagine what cause could have killed so large a field of coral. Upon reflection, however, it appeared to me
that the closing up of the above−mentioned channels would be a sufficient cause; for before this, a strong
breeze by forcing water through them into the head of the lagoon, would tend to raise its level. But now this
cannot happen, and the inhabitants observe that the tide rises to a less height, during a high S.E. wind, at the
head than at the mouth of the lagoon. The corals, which, under the former condition of things, had attained the
utmost possible limit of upward growth, would thus occasionally be exposed for a short time to the sun, and
be killed.
Besides the increase of dry land, indicated by the foregoing facts, the exterior solid reef appears to have grown
outwards. On the western side of the atoll, the "flat" lying between the margin of the reef and the beach, is
very wide; and in front of the regular beach with its conglomerate basis, there is, in most parts, a bed of sand
and loose fragments with trees growing out of it, which apparently is not reached even by the spray at high
water. It is evident some change has taken place since the waves formed the inner beach; that they formerly
beat against it with violence was evident, from a remarkably thick and water−worn point of conglomerate at
one spot, now protected by vegetation and a bank of sand; that they beat against it in the same peculiar
manner in which the swell from windward now obliquely curls round the margin of the reef, was evident from
the conglomerate having been worn into a point projecting from the beach in a similarly oblique manner. This
retreat in the line of action of the breakers might result, either from the surface of the reef in front of the islets
having been submerged at one time, and afterward having grown upwards, or from the mounds of coral on the
margin having continued to grow outwards. That an outward growth of this part is in process, can hardly be
doubted from the fact already mentioned of the mounds of Porites with their summits apparently lately killed,
and their sides only three or four inches lower down thickened by a fresh layer of living coral. But there is a
difficulty on this supposition which I must not pass over. If the whole, or a large part of the "flat," had been
formed by the outward growth of the margin, each successive margin would naturally have been coated by the
Nulliporae, and so much of the surface would have been of equal height with the existing zone of living
Nulliporae: this is not the case, as may be seen in the woodcut. It is, however, evident from the abraded state
of the "flat," with its original inequalities filled up, that its surface has been much modified; and it is possible
that the hinder portions of the zone of Nulliporae, perishing as the reef grows outwards, might be worn down
by the surf. If this has not taken place, the reef can in no part have increased outwards in breadth since its
formation, or at least since the Nulliporae formed the convex mound on its margin; for the zone thus formed,
and which stands between two and three feet above the other parts of the reef, is nowhere much above twenty
yards in width.
Thus far we have considered facts, which indicate, with more or less probability, the increase of the atoll in its
different parts: there are others having an opposite tendency. On the south−east side, Lieutenant Sulivan, to
whose kindness I am indebted for many interesting observations, found the conglomerate projecting on the
reef nearly fifty yards in front of the beach: we may infer from what we see in all other parts of the atoll, that
the conglomerate was not originally so much exposed, but formed the base of an islet, the front and upper part
of which has since been swept away. The degree to which the conglomerate, round nearly the whole atoll, has
been scooped, broken up, and the fragments cast on the beach, is certainly very surprising, even on the view
that it is the office of occasional gales to pile up fragments, and of the daily tides to wear them away. On the
western side, also, of the atoll, where I have described a bed of sand and fragments with trees growing out of
it, in front of an old beach, it struck both Lieutenant Sulivan and myself, from the manner in which the trees
were being washed down, that the surf had lately recommenced an attack on this line of coast. Appearances
indicating a slight encroachment of the water on the land, are plainer within the lagoon: I noticed in several
places, both on its windward and leeward shores, old cocoa−nut trees falling with their roots undermined, and
the rotten stumps of others on the beach, where the inhabitants assured us the cocoa−nut could not now grow.
Captain Fitzroy pointed out to me, near the settlement, the foundation posts of a shed, now washed by every
tide, but which the inhabitants stated, had seven years before stood above high watermark. In the calm waters
of the lagoon, directly connected with a great, and therefore stable ocean, it seems very improbable that a
change in the currents, sufficiently great to cause the water to eat into the land on all sides, should have taken
place within a limited period. From these considerations I inferred, that probably the atoll had lately subsided
to a small amount; and this inference was strengthened by the circumstance, that in 1834, two years before our
visit, the island had been shaken by a severe earthquake, and by two slighter ones during the ten previous
years. If, during these subterranean disturbances, the atoll did subside, the downward movement must have
been very small, as we must conclude from the fields of dead coral still lipping the surface of the lagoon, and
from the breakers on the western shore not having yet regained the line of their former action. The subsidence
must, also, have been preceded by a long period of rest, during which the islets extended to their present size,
and the living margin of the reef grew either upwards, or as I believe outwards, to its present distance from the
beach.
Whether this view be correct or not, the above facts are worthy of attention, as showing how severe a struggle
is in progress on these low coral formations between the two nicely balanced powers of land and water. With
respect to the future state of Keeling atoll, if left undisturbed, we can see that the islets may still extend in
length; but as they cannot resist the surf until broken by rolling over a wide space, their increase in breadth
must depend on the increasing breadth of the reef; and this must be limited by the steepness of the submarine
flanks, which can be added to only by sediment derived from the wear and tear of the coral. From the rapid
growth of the coral in the channel cut for the schooner, and from the several agents at work in producing fine
sediment, it might be thought that the lagoon would necessarily become quickly filled up. Some of this
sediment, however, is transported into the open sea, as appears from the soundings off the mouth of the
lagoon, instead of being deposited within it. The deposition, moreover, of sediment, checks the growth of
coral−reefs, so that these two agencies cannot act together with full effect in filling it up. We know so little of
the habits of the many different species of corals, which form the lagoon−reefs, that we have no more reasons
for supposing that their whole surface would grow up as quickly as the coral did in the schooner−channel,
than for supposing that the whole surface of a peat−moss would increase as quickly as parts are known to do
in holes, where the peat has been cut away. These agencies, nevertheless, tend to fill up the lagoon; but in
proportion as it becomes shallower, so must the polypifers be subject to many injurious agencies, such as
impure water and loss of food. For instance, Mr. Liesk informed me, that some years before our visit
unusually heavy rain killed nearly all the fish in the lagoon, and probably the same cause would likewise
injure the corals. The reefs also, it must be remembered, cannot possibly rise above the level of the lowest
spring−tide, so that the final conversion of the lagoon into land must be due to the accumulation of sediment;
and in the midst of the clear water of the ocean, and with no surrounding high land, this process must be
exceedingly slow.
SECTION 1.II.−−GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF ATOLLS.
General form and size of atolls, their reefs and islets.−−External slope.−− Zone of
Nulliporae.−−Conglomerate.−−Depth of lagoons.−−Sediment.−−Reefs submerged wholly or in
part.−−Breaches in the reef.−−Ledge−formed shores round certain lagoons.−−Conversion of lagoons into
land.
I will here give a sketch of the general form and structure of the many atolls and atoll−formed reefs which
occur in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, comparing them with Keeling atoll. The Maldiva atolls and the Great
Chagos Bank differ in so many respects, that I shall devote to them, besides occasional references, a third
section of this chapter. Keeling atoll may be considered as of moderate dimensions and of regular form. Of the
thirty−two islands surveyed by Captain Beechey in the Low Archipelago, the longest was found to be thirty
miles, and the shortest less than a mile; but Vliegen atoll, situated in another part of the same group, appears
to be sixty miles long and twenty broad. Most of the atolls in this group are of an elongated form; thus Bow
Island is thirty miles in length, and on an average only six in width (See Figure 4, Plate I.), and Clermont
Tonnere has nearly the same proportions. In the Marshall Archipelago (the Ralick and Radack group of
Kotzebue) several of the atolls are more than thirty miles in length, and Rimsky Korsacoff is fifty−four long,
and twenty wide, at the broadest part of its irregular outline. Most of the atolls in the Maldiva Archipelago are
of great size, one of them (which, however, bears a double name) measured in a medial and slightly curved
line, is no less than eighty−eight geographical miles long, its greatest width being under twenty, and its least
only nine and a half miles. Some atolls have spurs projecting from them; and in the Marshall group there are
atolls united together by linear reefs, for instance Menchikoff Island (See Figure 3, Plate II.), which is sixty
miles in length, and consists of three loops tied together. In far the greater number of cases an atoll consists of
a simple elongated ring, with its outline moderately regular.
The average width of the annular wreath may be taken as about a quarter of a mile. Captain Beechey
(Beechey's "Voyage to the Pacific and Beering's Straits," chapter viii.) says that in the atolls of the Low
Archipelago it exceeded in no instance half a mile. The description given of the structure and proportional
dimensions of the reef and islets of Keeling atoll, appears to apply perfectly to nearly all the atolls in the
Pacific and Indian Oceans. The islets are first formed some way back either on the projecting points of the
reef, especially if its form be angular, or on the sides of the main entrances into the lagoon−−that is in both
cases, on points where the breakers can act during gales of wind in somewhat different directions, so that the
matter thrown up from one side may accumulate against that before thrown up from another. In Lutke's chart
of the Caroline atolls, we see many instances of the former case; and the occurrence of islets, as if placed for
beacons, on the points where there is a gateway or breach through the reef, has been noticed by several
authors. There are some atoll−formed reefs, rising to the surface of the sea and partly dry at low water, on
which from some cause islets have never been formed; and there are others on which they have been formed,
but have subsequently been worn away. In atolls of small dimensions the islets frequently become united into
a single horse−shoe or ring−formed strip; but Diego Garcia, although an atoll of considerable size, being
thirteen miles and a half in length, has its lagoon entirely surrounded, except at the northern end, by a belt of
land, on an average a third of a mile in width. To show how small the total area of the annular reef and the
land is in islands of this class, I may quote a remark from the voyage of Lutke, namely, that if the forty−three
rings, or atolls, in the Caroline Archipelago, were put one within another, and over a steeple in the centre of
St. Petersburg, the whole world would not cover that city and its suburbs.
The form of the bottom off Keeling atoll, which gradually slopes to about twenty fathoms at the distance of
between one and two hundred yards from the edge of the reef, and then plunges at an angle of 45 deg into
unfathomable depths, is exactly the same (The form of the bottom round the Marshall atolls in the Northern
Pacific is probably similar: Kotzebue ("First Voyage," volume ii., page 16) says: "We had at a small distance
from the reef, forty fathoms depth, which increased a little further so much that we could find no bottom.")
with that of the sections of the atolls in the Low Archipelago given by Captain Beechey. The nature, however,
of the bottom seems to differ, for this officer (I must be permitted to express my obligation to Captain
Beechey, for the very kind manner in which he has given me information on several points, and to own the
great assistance I have derived from his excellent published work.) informs me that all the soundings, even the
deepest, were on coral, but he does not know whether dead or alive. The slope round Christmas atoll (Lat. 1
deg 4' N., 157 deg 45' W.), described by Cook (Cook's "Third Voyage," volume ii., chapter 10.), is
considerably less, at about half a mile from the edge of the reef, the average depth was about fourteen fathoms
on a fine sandy bottom, and at a mile, only between twenty and forty fathoms. It has no doubt been owing to
this gentle slope, that the strip of land surrounding its lagoon, has increased in one part to the extraordinary
width of three miles; it is formed of successive ridges of broken shells and corals, like those on the beach. I
know of no other instance of such width in the reef of an atoll; but Mr. F.D. Bennett informs me that the
inclination of the bottom round Caroline atoll in the Pacific, is like that off Christmas Island, very gentle. Off
the Maldiva and Chagos atolls, the inclination is much more abrupt; thus at Heawandoo Pholo, Lieutenant
Powell (This fact is taken from a MS. account of these groups lent me by Captain Moresby. See also Captain
Moresby's paper on the Maldiva atolls in the "Geographical Journal", volume v., page 401.) found fifty and
sixty fathoms close to the edge of the reef, and at 300 yards distance there was no bottom with a 300−yard
line. Captain Moresby informs me, that at 100 fathoms from the mouth of the lagoon of Diego Garcia, he
found no bottom with 150 fathoms; this is the more remarkable, as the slope is generally less abrupt in front of
channels through a reef, owing to the accumulation of sediment. At Egmont Island, also, at 150 fathoms from
the reef, soundings were struck with 150 fathoms. Lastly, at Cardoo atoll, only sixty yards from the reef, no
bottom was obtained, as I am informed by Captain Moresby, with a line of 200 fathoms! The currents run
with great force round these atolls, and where they are strongest, the inclination appears to be most abrupt. I
am informed by the same authority, that wherever soundings were obtained off these islands, the bottom was
invariably sandy: nor was there any reason to suspect the existence of submarine cliffs, as there was at
Keeling Island. (Off some of the islands in the Low Archipelago the bottom appears to descend by ledges.