Chapter VII.: "Central Chile; Structure of the Cordillera.") These

islands were covered with fine trees; in the conglomerate, I found one

15 feet in circumference perfectly silicified to the very centre. The

alternations of compact crystalline rocks (I cannot doubt subaqueous

lavas), and sedimentary beds, now upheaved fractured and indurated, form

the main range of the Andes. The formation was produced at the time when

ammonites, gryphites, oysters, Pecten, Mytilus, etc., etc., lived. In

the central parts of Chili the structure of the lower beds is rendered

very obscure by the metamorphic action which has rendered even the

coarsest conglomerates porphyritic. The Cordilleras of the Andes so

worthy of admiration from the grandeur of their dimensions, rise in

dignity when it is considered that since the period of ammonites, they

have formed a marked feature in the geography of the globe. The geology

of these mountains pleased me in one respect; when reading Lyell, it had

always struck me that if the crust of the world goes on changing in a

circle, there ought to be somewhere found formations which, having the

age of the great European Secondary beds, should possess the structure

of Tertiary rocks or those formed amidst islands and in limited basins.

Now the alternations of lava and coarse sediment which form the upper

parts of the Andes, correspond exactly to what would accumulate under

such circumstances. In consequence of this, I can only very roughly

separate into three divisions the varying strata (perhaps 8,000 feet

thick) which compose these mountains. I am afraid you will tell me

to learn my ABC to know quartz from feldspar before I indulge in such

speculations. I lately got hold of a report on M. Dessalines D'Orbigny's

labours in S. America (7/2. "Voyage dans l'Amerique Meridionale, etc."

(A. Dessalines D'Orbigny).); I experienced rather a debasing degree of

vexation to find he has described the Geology of the Pampas, and that I

have had some hard riding for nothing, it was however gratifying that my

conclusions are the same, as far as I can collect, with his results. It

is also capital that the whole of Bolivia will be described. I hope to

be able to connect his geology of that country with mine of Chili.

After leaving Copiapo, we touched at Iquique. I visited but do not quite

understand the position of the nitrate of soda beds. Here in Peru, from

the state of anarchy, I can make no expedition.

I hear from home, that my brother is going to send me a box with books,

and a letter from you. It is very unfortunate that I cannot receive this

before we reach Sydney, even if it ever gets safely so far. I shall not

have another opportunity for many months of again writing to you. Will

you have the charity to send me one more letter (as soon as this reaches

you) directed to the C. of Good Hope. Your letters besides affording

me the greatest delight always give me a fresh stimulus for exertion.

Excuse this geological prosy letter, and farewell till you hear from me

at Sydney, and see me in the autumn of 1836.

LETTER 8. TO JOSIAH WEDGWOOD. [Shrewsbury, October 5th, 1836.]

My dear Uncle

The "Beagle" arrived at Falmouth on Sunday evening, and I reached home

late last night. My head is quite confused with so much delight, but I

cannot allow my sisters to tell you first how happy I am to see all

my dear friends again. I am obliged to return in three or four days

to London, where the "Beagle" will be paid off, and then I shall pay

Shrewsbury a longer visit. I am most anxious once again to see Maer, and

all its inhabitants, so that in the course of two or three weeks, I hope

in person to thank you, as being my first Lord of the Admiralty. (8/1.)

Readers of the "Life and Letters" will remember that it was to Josiah

Wedgwood that Darwin owed the great opportunity of his life ("Life and

Letters," Volume I., page 59), and it was fitting that he should report

himself to his "first Lord of the Admiralty." The present letter clears

up a small obscurity to which Mr. Poulton has called attention ("Charles

Darwin and the Theory of Natural Selection," "Century" Series, 1896,

page 25). Writing to Fitz-Roy from Shrewsbury on October 6th, Darwin

says, "I arrived here yesterday morning at breakfast time." This refers

to his arrival at his father's house, after having slept at the inn. The

date of his arrival in Shrewsbury was, therefore, October 4th, as given

in the "Life and Letters," I., page 272.) The entries in his Diary

are:--October 2, 1831. Took leave of my home. October 4, 1836. Reached

Shrewsbury after absence of 5 years and 2 days.) I am so very happy I

hardly know what I am writing. Believe me your most affectionate nephew,

CHAS. DARWIN.

LETTER 9. TO C. LYELL. Shrewsbury, Monday [November 12th, 1838].

My dear Lyell

I suppose you will be in Hart St. (9/1. Sir Charles Lyell lived at 16,

Hart Street, Bloomsbury.) to-morrow [or] the 14th. I write because

I cannot avoid wishing to be the first person to tell Mrs. Lyell and

yourself, that I have the very good, and shortly since [i.e. until

lately] very unexpected fortune of going to be married! The lady is my

cousin Miss Emma Wedgwood, the sister of Hensleigh Wedgwood, and of the

elder brother who married my sister, so we are connected by manifold

ties, besides on my part, by the most sincere love and hearty gratitude

to her for accepting such a one as myself.

I determined when last at Maer to try my chance, but I hardly expected

such good fortune would turn up for me. I shall be in town in the middle

or latter end of the ensuing week. (9/2. Mr. Darwin was married on

January 29th, 1839 (see "Life and Letters," I., page 299). The present

letter was written the day after he had become engaged.) I fear you

will say I might very well have left my story untold till we met. But

I deeply feel your kindness and friendship towards me, which in truth

I may say, has been one chief source of happiness to me, ever since

my return to England: so you must excuse me. I am well sure that Mrs.

Lyell, who has sympathy for every one near her, will give me her hearty

congratulations.

Believe me my dear Lyell Yours most truly obliged CHAS. DARWIN.

(PLATE: MRS. DARWIN. Walker and Cockerell, ph. sc.)

LETTER 10. TO EMMA WEDGWOOD. Sunday Night. Athenaeum. [January 20th,

1839.]

...I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed my Maer visit,--I felt in

anticipation my future tranquil life: how I do hope you may be as happy

as I know I shall be: but it frightens me, as often as I think of what

a family you have been one of. I was thinking this morning how it came,

that I, who am fond of talking and am scarcely ever out of spirits,

should so entirely rest my notions of happiness on quietness, and a good

deal of solitude: but I believe the explanation is very simple and I

mention it because it will give you hopes, that I shall gradually grow

less of a brute, it is that during the five years of my voyage (and

indeed I may add these two last) which from the active manner in which

they have been passed, may be said to be the commencement of my real

life, the whole of my pleasure was derived from what passed in my mind,

while admiring views by myself, travelling across the wild deserts

or glorious forests or pacing the deck of the poor little "Beagle" at

night. Excuse this much egotism,--I give it you because I think you will

humanize me, and soon teach me there is greater happiness than building

theories and accumulating facts in silence and solitude. My own dearest

Emma, I earnestly pray, you may never regret the great, and I will add

very good, deed, you are to perform on the Tuesday: my own dear future

wife, God bless you...The Lyells called on me to-day after church; as

Lyell was so full of geology he was obliged to disgorge,--and I dine

there on Tuesday for an especial confidence. I was quite ashamed of

myself to-day, for we talked for half an hour, unsophisticated geology,

with poor Mrs. Lyell sitting by, a monument of patience. I want practice

in ill-treatment the female sex,--I did not observe Lyell had any

compunction; I hope to harden my conscience in time: few husbands

seem to find it difficult to effect this. Since my return I have taken

several looks, as you will readily believe, into the drawing-room; I

suppose my taste [for] harmonious colours is already deteriorated, for

I declare the room begins to look less ugly. I take so much pleasure

in the house (10/1. No. 12, Upper Gower Street, is now No. 110, Gower

Street, and forms part of a block inhabited by Messrs. Shoolbred's

employes. We are indebted, for this information, to Mr. Wheatley, of the

Society of Arts.), I declare I am just like a great overgrown child with

a new toy; but then, not like a real child, I long to have a co-partner

and possessor.

(10/2. The following passage is taken from the MS. copy of the

"Autobiography;" it was not published in the "Life and Letters" which

appeared in Mrs. Darwin's lifetime:--)

You all know your mother, and what a good mother she has ever been to

all of you. She has been my greatest blessing, and I can declare that in

my whole life I have never heard her utter one word I would rather have

been unsaid. She has never failed in kindest sympathy towards me, and

has borne with the utmost patience my frequent complaints of ill-health

and discomfort. I do not believe she has ever missed an opportunity of

doing a kind action to any one near her. I marvel at my good fortune

that she, so infinitely my superior in every single moral quality,

consented to be my wife. She has been my wise adviser and cheerful

comforter throughout life, which without her would have been during a

very long period a miserable one from ill-health. She has earned the

love of every soul near her.

LETTER 11. C. LYELL TO C. DARWIN. [July?, 1841?].

(11/1. Lyell started on his first visit to the United States in July,

1841, and was absent thirteen months. Darwin returned to London July

23rd, 1841, after a prolonged absence; he may, therefore, have missed

seeing Lyell. Assuming the date 1841 to be correct, it would seem

that the plan of living in the country was formed a year before it was

actually carried out.)

I have no doubt that your father did rightly in persuading you to stay

[at Shrewsbury], but we were much disappointed in not seeing you before

our start for a year's absence. I cannot tell you how often since your

long illness I have missed the friendly intercourse which we had so

frequently before, and on which I built more than ever after your

marriage. It will not happen easily that twice in one's life, even in

the large world of London, a congenial soul so occupied with precisely

the same pursuits and with an independence enabling him to pursue them

will fall so nearly in my way, and to have had it snatched from me with

the prospect of your residence somewhat far off is a privation I feel as

a very great one. I hope you will not, like Herschell, get far off from

a railway.

LETTER 12. TO CATHERINE DARWIN.

(12/1. The following letter was written to his sister Catherine about

two months before Charles Darwin settled at Down:--)

Sunday [July 1842].

You must have been surprised at not having heard sooner about the house.

Emma and I only returned yesterday afternoon from sleeping there. I will

give you in detail, as my father would like, MY opinion on it--Emma's

slightly differs. Position:--about 1/4 of a mile from the small village

of Down in Kent--16 miles from St. Paul's--8 1/2 miles from station

(with many trains) which station is only 10 from London. This is bad,

as the drive from [i.e. on account of] the hills is long. I calculate we

are two hours going from London Bridge. Village about forty houses with

old walnut trees in the middle where stands an old flint church and the

lanes meet. Inhabitants very respectable--infant school--grown up people

great musicians--all touch their hats as in Wales and sit at their open

doors in the evening; no high road leads through the village. The little

pot-house where we slept is a grocer's shop, and the landlord is the

carpenter--so you may guess the style of the village. There are butcher

and baker and post-office. A carrier goes weekly to London and calls

anywhere for anything in London and takes anything anywhere. On the road

[from London] to the village, on a fine day the scenery is absolutely

beautiful: from close to our house the view is very distant and rather

beautiful, but the house being situated on a rather high tableland has

somewhat of a desolate air. There is a most beautiful old farm-house,

with great thatched barns and old stumps of oak trees, like that of

Skelton, one field off. The charm of the place to me is that almost

every field is intersected (as alas is ours) by one or more foot-paths.

I never saw so many walks in any other county. The country is

extraordinarily rural and quiet with narrow lanes and high hedges and

hardly any ruts. It is really surprising to think London is only 16

miles off. The house stands very badly, close to a tiny lane and near

another man's field. Our field is 15 acres and flat, looking into

flat-bottomed valleys on both sides, but no view from the drawing-room,

which faces due south, except on our flat field and bits of rather ugly

distant horizon. Close in front there are some old (very productive)

cherry trees, walnut trees, yew, Spanish chestnut, pear, old larch,

Scotch fir and silver fir and old mulberry trees, [which] make rather a

pretty group. They give the ground an old look, but from not flourishing

much they also give it rather a desolate look. There are quinces and

medlars and plums with plenty of fruit, and Morello cherries; but few

apples. The purple magnolia flowers against the house. There is a really

fine beech in view in our hedge. The kitchen garden is a detestable slip

and the soil looks wretched from the quantity of chalk flints, but I

really believe it is productive. The hedges grow well all round our

field, and it is a noted piece of hayland. This year the crop was

bad, but was bought, as it stood, for 2 pounds per acre--that is 30

pounds--the purchaser getting it in. Last year it was sold for 45

pounds--no manure was put on in the interval. Does not this sound well?

Ask my father. Does the mulberry and magnolia show it is not very cold

in winter, which I fear is the case? Tell Susan it is 9 miles from

Knole Park and 6 from Westerham, at which places I hear the scenery

is beautiful. There are many very odd views round our house--deepish

flat-bottomed valley and nice farm-house, but big, white, ugly, fallow

fields;--much wheat grown here. House ugly, looks neither old nor

new--walls two feet thick--windows rather small--lower story rather low.

Capital study 18 x 18. Dining-room 21 x 18. Drawing-room can easily be

added to: is 21 x 15. Three stories, plenty of bedrooms. We could hold

the Hensleighs and you and Susan and Erasmus all together. House in good

repair. Mr. Cresy a few years ago laid out for the owner 1,500 pounds

and made a new roof. Water-pipes over house--two bath-rooms--pretty good

offices and good stable-yard, etc., and a cottage. I believe the price

is about 2,200 pounds, and I have no doubt I shall get it for one year

on lease first to try, so that I shall do nothing to the house at first

(last owner kept three cows, one horse, and one donkey, and sold

some hay annually from one field). I have no doubt if we complete the

purchase I shall at least save 1,000 pounds over Westcroft, or any other

house we have seen. Emma was at first a good deal disappointed, and at

the country round the house; the day was gloomy and cold with N.E. wind.

She likes the actual field and house better than I; the house is just

situated as she likes for retirement, not too near or too far from other

houses, but she thinks the country looks desolate. I think all chalk

countries do, but I am used to Cambridgeshire, which is ten times worse.

Emma is rapidly coming round. She was dreadfully bad with toothache and

headache in the evening and Friday, but in coming back yesterday she was

so delighted with the scenery for the first few miles from Down, that it

has worked a great change in her. We go there again the first fine day

Emma is able, and we then finally settle what to do.

(12/2. The following fragmentary "Account of Down" was found among Mr.

Darwin's papers after the publication of the "Life and Letters." It

gives the impression that he intended to write a natural history diary

after the manner of Gilbert White, but there is no evidence that this

was actually the case.)

1843. May 15th.--The first peculiarity which strikes a stranger

unaccustomed to a hilly chalk country is the valleys, with their steep

rounded bottoms--not furrowed with the smallest rivulet. On the road to

Down from Keston a mound has been thrown across a considerable valley,

but even against this mound there is no appearance of even a small

pool of water having collected after the heaviest rains. The water

all percolates straight downwards. Ascertain average depth of wells,

inclination of strata, and springs. Does the water from this country

crop out in springs in Holmsdale or in the valley of the Thames? Examine

the fine springs in Holmsdale.

The valleys on this platform sloping northward, but exceedingly even,

generally run north and south; their sides near the summits generally

become suddenly more abrupt, and are fringed with narrow strips, or, as

they are here called, "shaws" of wood, sometimes merely by hedgerows run

wild. The sudden steepness may generally be perceived, as just before

ascending to Cudham Wood, and at Green Hill, where one of the lanes

crosses these valleys. These valleys are in all probability ancient

sea-bays, and I have sometimes speculated whether this sudden steepening

of the sides does not mark the edges of vertical cliffs formed when

these valleys were filled with sea-water, as would naturally happen in

strata such as the chalk.

In most countries the roads and footpaths ascend along the bottoms of

valleys, but here this is scarcely ever the case. All the villages and

most of the ancient houses are on the platforms or narrow strips of flat

land between the parallel valleys. Is this owing to the summits having

existed from the most ancient times as open downs and the valleys having

been filled up with brushwood? I have no evidence of this, but it is

certain that most of the farmhouses on the flat land are very ancient.

There is one peculiarity which would help to determine the footpaths

to run along the summits instead of the bottom of the valleys, in that

these latter in the middle are generally covered, even far more thickly

than the general surface, with broken flints. This bed of flints, which

gradually thins away on each side, can be seen from a long distance in a

newly ploughed or fallow field as a whitish band. Every stone which ever

rolls after heavy rain or from the kick of an animal, ever so little,

all tend to the bottom of the valleys; but whether this is sufficient

to account for their number I have sometimes doubted, and have been

inclined to apply to the case Lyell's theory of solution by rain-water,

etc., etc.

The flat summit-land is covered with a bed of stiff red clay, from a

few feet in thickness to as much, I believe, as twenty feet: this

[bed], though lying immediately on the chalk, and abounding with

great, irregularly shaped, unrolled flints, often with the colour and

appearance of huge bones, which were originally embedded in the chalk,

contains not a particle of carbonate of lime. This bed of red clay lies

on a very irregular surface, and often descends into deep round wells,

the origin of which has been explained by Lyell. In these cavities are

patches of sand like sea-sand, and like the sand which alternates

with the great beds of small pebbles derived from the wear-and-tear of

chalk-flints, which form Keston, Hayes and Addington Commons. Near Down

a rounded chalk-flint is a rarity, though some few do occur; and I have

not yet seen a stone of distant origin, which makes a difference--at

least to geological eyes--in the very aspect of the country, compared

with all the northern counties.

The chalk-flints decay externally, which, according to Berzelius ("Edin.

New Phil. Journal," late number), is owing to the flints containing a

small proportion of alkali; but, besides this external decay, the whole

body is affected by exposure of a few years, so that they will not break

with clean faces for building.

This bed of red clay, which renders the country very slippery in the

winter months from October to April, does not cover the sides of the

valleys; these, when ploughed, show the white chalk, which tint shades

away lower in the valley, as insensibly as a colour laid on by a

painter's brush.

Nearly all the land is ploughed, and is often left fallow, which gives

the country a naked red look, or not unfrequently white, from a covering

of chalk laid on by the farmers. Nobody seems at all aware on what

principle fresh chalk laid on land abounding with lime does it any good.

This, however, is said to have been the practice of the country ever

since the period of the Romans, and at present the many white pits on

the hill sides, which so frequently afford a picturesque contrast with

the overhanging yew trees, are all quarried for this purpose.

The number of different kinds of bushes in the hedgerows, entwined

by traveller's joy and the bryonies, is conspicuous compared with the

hedges of the northern counties.

March 25th [1844?].--The first period of vegetation, and the banks are

clothed with pale-blue violets to an extent I have never seen equalled,

and with primroses. A few days later some of the copses were beautifully

enlivened by Ranunculus auricomus, wood anemones, and a white Stellaria.

Again, subsequently, large areas were brilliantly blue with bluebells.

The flowers are here very beautiful, and the number of flowers; [and]

the darkness of the blue of the common little Polygala almost equals it

to an alpine gentian.

There are large tracts of woodland, [cut down] about once every ten

years; some of these enclosures seem to be very ancient. On the south

side of Cudham Wood a beech hedge has grown to Brobdignagian size, with

several of the huge branches crossing each other and firmly grafted

together.

Larks abound here, and their songs sound most agreeably on all sides;

nightingales are common. Judging from an odd cooing note, something like

the purring of a cat, doves are very common in the woods.

June 25th.--The sainfoin fields are now of the most beautiful pink, and

from the number of hive-bees frequenting them the humming noise is quite

extraordinary. This humming is rather deeper than the humming overhead,

which has been continuous and loud during all these last hot days over

almost every field. The labourers here say it is made by "air-bees,"

and one man, seeing a wild bee in a flower different from the hive kind,

remarked: "That, no doubt, is an air-bee." This noise is considered as a

sign of settled fair weather.