Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands and Parts of South America visited during the Voyage of HMS “Beagle”

Abstract

MR. DARWIN'S important contributions to biological observation and theory have during the last seventeen years attracted so much public attention, that there is some danger—one from which, however, all geologists will claim exemption—of his valuable labours in almost every department of geological research being to some extent lost sight of. Long, however, before the publication of the “Origin of Species,” its author had achieved a foremost place in the ranks of the cultivators of geological science; nor must it be forgotten that the great work itself is as much a contribution to geology as to biology. Students of Mr. Darwin's earlier geological writings must all have been impressed by the powers of minute observation, the acumen in testing, and the skill in grouping data, and the boldness and originality in generalisation which distinguish their author; for these characteristics are no less conspicuously displayed in the theory of Coral Reefs than in that of Natural Selection.

Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands and Parts of South America visited during the Voyage of H.M.S. “Beagle.”

By Charles Darwin Second Edition, with Maps and Illustrations. (London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1876)