and with living corals in the tidal pools at my feet."

Only five years before, when listening to poor Professor Jameson's lectures
on the effete Wernerianism, which at that time did duty for geological
teaching, Darwin had found them "incredibly dull," and he declared that
"the sole effect they produced on me was a determination never so long as I
lived to read a book on Geology, or in any way to study the science."

What a contrast we find in the expressions which he makes use of in
referring to Geological Science, in his letters written home from the
"Beagle!" After alluding to the delight of collecting and studying marine
animals, he exclaims, "But Geology carries the day!" Writing to Henslow he
says, "I am quite charmed with Geology, but, like the wise animal between
two bundles of hay, I do not know which to like best; the old crystalline
group of rocks, or the softer and more fossiliferous beds." And just as the
long voyage is about to come to a close he again writes, "I find in Geology
a never-failing interest; as it has been remarked, it creates the same
grand ideas respecting this world which Astronomy does for the Universe."
In this passage Darwin doubtless refers to a remark of Sir John Herschel's
in his admirable "Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural
Philosophy,"--a book which exercised a most remarkable and beneficial
influence on the mind of the young naturalist.

If there cannot be any doubt as to the strong predilection in Darwin's mind
for geological studies, both during and after the memorable voyage, there
is equally little difficulty in perceiving the school of geological thought
which, in spite of the warnings of Sedgwick and Henslow, had obtained
complete ascendancy over his mind. He writes in 1876: "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,