¹ DAR 41, fol. 36, Manuscript collection, Cambridge University Library.

² Darwin, C., ‘On the connexion of certain volcanic phenomena in South America, and on the formation of mountain chains and volcanos, as the effects of the same power by which continents are elevated’, Transactions of the Geological Society of London, (1840) 2d ser., pt 3, 5: pp. 601–31, 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar text figure.

³ Darwin, C., ‘On the connexion of certain volcanic phenomena and on the formation of mountain-chains and the effects of continental elevations’, Proceedings of the Geological Society of London (1838), 2, no. 56, pp. 654–60.Google Scholar

⁴ Burkhardt, F. and Smith, S., The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. ii [1837–1843], Cambridge, 1986, p. 439.Google Scholar Additionally, speaking of a large glacial erratic boulder near his family home in Shrewsbury, Darwin wrote in his autobiography, ‘…I meditated over this wonderful stone.’ See The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–1882, with the Original Omissions Restored (ed. Barlow, N.), London, 1958, p. 53.Google Scholar

⁵ Ibid., p. 47.

⁶ Secord, James A., pp. 133–57Google Scholar, this volume.

⁷ Ibid., p. 64.

⁸ Burkhardt, F. and Smith, S., The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. i, [1821–1836], Cambridge, 1985, p. 236.Google Scholar

⁹ Ibid., p. 232.

¹⁰ Gruber, H. E. and Gruber, V., ‘The eye of reason: Darwin's development during the Beagle voyage’, Isis, (1962), 53, pp. 186–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹¹ Porter, D., ‘The Beagle collector and his collections’, The Darwinian Heritage (ed. Kohn, D.), Princeton, New Jersey, 1985, p. 984.Google Scholar See also Herbert, Sandra, ‘The place of man in the development of Darwin's theory of transmutation, Part II’, J. Hist. Biol., 10, no. 22, pp. 155–227CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a discussion of Darwin's ‘private’ view of his ‘authorized’ role as a geologist, in contrast to his ‘frittering’ on transmutation (p. 215).

¹² Barlow, , op. cit. (4), p. 101.Google Scholar

¹³ Ibid., p. 77.

¹⁴ Burkhardt, and Smith, , op. cit. (8), p. 460.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Barlow, , op. cit. (4), p. 82.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Burkhardt, and Smith, , op. cit. (8), p. 512.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Barlow, , op. cit. (4), pp. 83–4.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Judd, J. W., ‘Darwin and geology’, Darwin and Modern Science (ed. Seward, A. C.), Cambridge, 1909, p. 358.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Judd, ibid., p. 356. For an account of the Society's broader influence, see Rudwick, M. J. S., ‘Charles Darwin in London’, Isis, (1982), 73, pp. 186–206.Google Scholar

²⁰ Judd, , op. cit. (18), p. 358.Google Scholar

²¹ See, for example, Herbert, , op. cit. (11), pp. 157–77Google Scholar, for a persuasive discussion of the lack of a contemporary role for a theorist and its impact upon Darwin's presentation of transmutation.

²² See, for example, his letter to Whewell in Burkhardt, and Smith, , op. cit. (4), pp. 9–10, 50–2, 69.Google Scholar

²³ See letters in Burkhardt, and Smith, , op. cit. (4), pp. 260–1.Google Scholar

²⁴ See Rudwick, , op. cit. (19)Google Scholar for an account of Darwin's membership in the Society in relation to his intellectual development.

²⁵ Barlow, , op. cit. (4), p. 98.Google Scholar

²⁶ Burkhardt, and Smith, , op. cit. (8), p. 462.Google Scholar

²⁷ See Herbert, S., The Red Notebook of Charles Darwin, Ithaca, NY, 1980, p. 50.Google Scholar

²⁸ Ibid., p. 62.

²⁹ Whewell, W., ‘Address to the Geological Society’, Proc. Geol. Soc. Land. (1838), 2, p. 632.Google Scholar

³⁰ von Buch, L., ‘Uber die Zusammensetzung der Baltischen Inseln und Wen Ehrebungs-Cratere’, Abhandlungen der Koniglichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin, (1820), pp. 83–136.Google Scholar

³¹ von Buch, L., ‘Volcanoes and craters of elevation’, Edin. New Phil. J. (1836), 21, p. 206.Google Scholar

³² Laudan, R., From Mineralogy to Geology, Chicago, 1987CrossRefGoogle Scholar, has given a critical review of von Buch's work and of related Wernerian ‘causal geology’. See also Dean, Dennis R., ‘Graham Island, Charles Lyell, and the craters of elevation controversy’, Isis, (1980), 71, pp. 571–88.Google Scholar

³³ de Beaumont, J. B. A. L. L. Elie, ‘Researches on some of the revolutions which have taken place on the surface of the globe; presenting various examples of the coincidence between the elevation of beds in certain systems of mountains, and the sudden changes which have produced the lines of demarcation observable in certain stages of the sedimentary deposits’, Philosophical Magazine and Annals of Philosophy, (1831), n.s., 10, pp. 241–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁴ Greene, M. T., Geology in the Nineteenth Century, Ithaca, NY, 1982, p. 89.Google Scholar

³⁵ See also Laudan, , op. cit. (32), pp. 197–200Google Scholar and Greene, , op. cit. (34)Google Scholar for a fuller discussion of Elie de Beaumont's views.

³⁶ Rogers, W. B. and Rogers, H. D., ‘On the physical structure of the Appalachian Chain, as exemplifying the laws which have regulated the elevations of great mountain chains, generally’, Contributions to the Geology of the United States, Trans. Assoc. Amer. Geologists and Naturalists, (1843), pp. 474–531.Google Scholar

³⁷ Lyell, C., Principles of Geology, 6th edn, 3 vols., London, 1840.Google Scholar See particularly vol. ii, pp. 449, 461. The prevailing view of Lyell, 's PrinciplesGoogle Scholar as the foundation of contemporary geology (see for example, Bailey, E. B., Sir Charles Lyell, London, 1962Google Scholar, and Wilson, L. A., Charles Lyell: The Years to 1841 – The Revolution in Geology, New Haven, Conn., 1972)Google Scholar has recently been challenged by Lawrence, P., ‘Charles Lyell versus the theory of central heat: a reappraisal of Lyell's place in the history of geology’, J. Hist. Biol. (1978), 11, pp. 101–28Google Scholar and Greene, , op. cit. (34).Google Scholar For a thoughtful analysis see Laudan, , op. cit. (32), pp. 201–21.Google Scholar It is noteworthy that Lyell made two other suggestions, both of which had novel implications. First, in rejecting the original central heat of the earth as an adequate source of heat to cause earthquakes and volcanoes, Lyell reasoned that ‘there must be a circulation of currents, tending to equalize the temperature of the resulting fluids, and the solid crust would be melted’ (Lyell, , op. cit. (37), ii, p. 449).Google Scholar In this he foreshadowed, to some extent, a view of subcrustal flow that was to gain acceptance more than a century later. Second, his demand for an earth in long-term dynamic equilibrium compelled him to seek a mechanism that would be self-sustaining, leading to a more or less steady level of vulcanism during the history of the earth. To provide this continuing source of energy he suggested that ‘hydrogen evolved during the process of saturation, may, on coming afterwards into contact with the heated metallic oxides, reduce them again to metals’. Thus, in suggesting a ‘circle of action’ by which the internal heat and ‘the stability of the volcanic energy’ were preserved (Lyell, , op. cit. (37), ii, p. 461)Google Scholar, he envisaged a continuous chemical reaction. In this he was willing to stretch contemporary credulity, in order to maintain his rejection of a uni-directional cooling mechanism. Only thus could his strict constructionist view of uniformitarianism be maintained. His view of uniformitarianism demanded the constant balance of uplift, erosion, submergence and deposition. Mountains, to Lyell, were a special case of this more general process. See, for example, Lyell, (op. cit. (37), ii, p. 479)Google Scholar, where he describes them as ‘the agents of a conservative principle above all others essential for the stability of the system’. Lyell had here become the captive of the ‘stability of the system’, the doctrine to which his own strict ‘kind and tempo’ uniformitarian methodology drove him.

³⁸ Herschel, J., ‘Letter to Lyell’, The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise (ed. Babbage, C.), London, 1837, pp. 202–17.Google Scholar Also Babbage, C., ‘On the action of existing causes in producing elevations and subsidences in portions of the earth's surface’, Ninth Bridgewater Treatise: A Fragment, Appendix G, London, 1837, pp. 187–8.Google Scholar

³⁹ The other topic, in addition to the more specific question of the origin of mountain chains, that occupied the attention of Darwin's contemporaries was the legitimacy of any theoretical reasoning and mechanistic speculation in relation to what was then known of the structure of the earth. Sedgwick, for example, in his Presidential Address to the Geological Society (Sedgwick, A., ‘Address to the Geological Society, delivered on the evening of the anniversary, Feb. 18, 1831’, Proc. Geol. Soc. Lond. (1831), 1, pp. 281–316)Google Scholar, cautioned, ‘Geology is a science of observation; and it is a humiliating fact…that the material combinations we investigate in an attempt to classify are too rude and ill-defined to be regarded as the appropriate results of any simple law of nature’. But, in spite of this admonition, Sedgwick proceeded in some ways to ignore his own advice; noting the connection of the laws of physics with the structure of the earth, he speculated expansively on an original molten state of the earth, with a high temperature and subsequent refrigeration, reflected amongst the fossils of ‘the ancient strata’. He also speculated on a contracting earth, ‘planetary perturbation’, changes in the eccentricity of the earth's orbit, and ‘returning cycles’ in earth history (ibid., pp. 298–301). After a lengthy review, he concluded, ‘Of the origin of volcanic forces we know nothing: but we do know that they are the irregular secondary results of great masses of matter obeying the primary laws of atomic action – and are aggravated or constrained by an endless number of causes, external and purely mechanical’ (ibid., p. 301). This mixture of admonition to theoretical restraint and indulgence to personal speculation was not uncommon in scientific writings of the period. Thus, Whewell, in his 1838 Presidential Address to the Geological Society, reviewed competing hypotheses in geological dynamics – including Darwin's – and distinguished between the ‘proximal’ effects (elevation, subsidence, vulcanism, etc.) and the ‘ulterior’ causes (Whewell, , ‘Address to the Geological Society’Google Scholar, Proc. Geol. Soc. Lond. (1838), 2, pp. 624–49)Google Scholar, which involved ‘subterraneous machinery’. He concluded that this ‘mighty maze’ was not without a plan that may allow the development of sound geological theory, but: Those who aspire to the felicity of knowing the causes of things, must not only trample underfoot the fears of a timid unphilosophical spirit, which the poet deems so necessary a preparation, but they must look with a steady eye on difficulty as well as violence. They must regard the terrors of the volcano and the earthquake, the secret paths by which hot and cold and moist and dry ran into their places, the wildest rush of the fluid mass, the latent powers which give solidity to the rock, – as operations of which they have to trace the laws and measure the quantities with mathematical exactness.

⁴⁰ Darwin, C., op. cit. (3), p. 658.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Ibid., p. 660.

⁴² See also Rudwick, M. J. S., ‘Darwin and the world of geology’ (Commentary) in The Darwinian Heritage (ed. Kohn, D.), Princeton, NJ, 1985, pp. 511–18Google Scholar and Herbert, S., ‘Darwin as a geologist’, Scientific American, (1986), 254, no. 5, pp. 116–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴³ Darwin, C., op. cit. (2), p. 630.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ DAR 34.1, Cambridge University Library.

⁴⁵ DAR 42, fol. 8, Cambridge University Library.

⁴⁶ Rudwick, M. J. S., ‘Uniformity and progression: reflections on the structure of geological theory in the age of Lyell’, Perspectives in the History of Science and Technology (ed. Roller, D. H. D.), Norman, Okla., 1971, pp. 209–27.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Ibid.

⁴⁸ See also Cannon, W. F., ‘The uniformitarian-catastrophist debate’, Isis, (1960), 51, pp. 38–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a discussion of Lyell's view.

⁴⁹ Sedgwick, A., ‘Address to the Geological Society, delivered on the evening of the anniversary, Feb. 18, 1831’, Proc. Geol. Soc. Land. 1, pp. 308, 311.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Darwin, C., op. cit. (2), p. 625.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Ibid., p. 628.

⁵² Ibid., p. 625.

⁵³ Ibid., p. 625.

⁵⁴ Ibid., p. 623.

⁵⁵ Ibid., p. 605.

⁵⁶ Ibid., p. 606.

⁵⁷ Ibid., p. 606.

⁵⁸ Ibid., p. 607.

⁵⁹ Ibid., p. 608.

⁶⁰ Ibid., p. 619.

⁶¹ Ibid., p. 615.

⁶² Ibid., p. 619.

⁶³ Michell, J., ‘Conjectures concerning the cause, and observations upon the phenomena of earthquakes, particularly of that great earthquake of the first of November 1755, which proved so fatal to the city of Lisbon, and whose effects were felt as far as Africa and more or less throughout almost all of Europe’, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. (1760), 50, pt 2, p. 580.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Darwin, C., op. cit. (2), pp. 622–3.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Ibid., p. 623 (emphasis added).

⁶⁶ ibid., p. 624.

⁶⁷ Hopkins, W., ‘Researches in physical geology’, Trans. Camb. Philos. Soc. (1835), 6, pt 1, pp. 1–84.Google ScholarHopkins, William (1793–1866)Google Scholar was the Cambridge tutor of Kelvin, Stokes and Maxwell. A pupil of Adam Sedgwick, it was he who introduced the term ‘physical geology’. For an authoritative account see Smith, C., ‘William Hopkins and the shaping of dynamical geology: 1830–1860’, BJHS (1989), 22, pp. 27–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁸ Darwin, C., op. cit. (2), p. 626.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Ibid., p. 628.

⁷⁰ Ibid., p. 629.

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⁷² Ibid., p. 630 (emphasis added).

⁷³ Ibid., p. 631.

⁷⁴ Burkhardt, and Smith, , op. cit. (4), pp. 87–8.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Hopkins, , op. cit. (67).Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Darwin, C., op. cit. (2), p. 601.Google Scholar

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⁷⁹ Rudwick, Martin, ‘Darwin and Glen Roy: a “Great Failure” in scientific method?’ Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. (1974), 5, No. 2, pp. 97–185CrossRefGoogle Scholar has published Sedgwick's comparable report on Darwin's Glen Roy paper, which was written later in 1838. Though, as Rudwick points out, the logical structure of the Glen Roy paper is stronger than its predecessors, reflecting perhaps the influence of Herschel and Whewell, Sedgwick, while recommending publication of the paper by the Royal Society, repeatedly describes the paper as ‘far too long’ and ‘diffuse’.

⁸⁰ See Burkhardt, and Smith, , op. cit. (4), pp. 175–6.Google Scholar

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⁸² Woodward, H., The History of the Geological Society of London, London, 1907, p. 146.Google Scholar That policy has deprived us of what might have been valuable information. On some occasions, informal records were kept of the conversations, and I have approached Dr John Thackray, Archivist of the Geological Society, to enquire about such a possibility on 7 March 1838. He tells me that he knows of no such record. I have examined the Geological Society minutes of the meeting, and they provide no useful commentary. The role of the Geological Society in the overall development of the science during this period is also discussed by Sandra Herbert, James A. Secord and Martin J. S. Rudwick.

⁸³ Life, Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell, Bart (ed. Lyell, K. M.), vol. ii, London, 1881, pp. 40–1.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Ibid., p. 41. The strength of the criticism of Lyell's views may be judged by Sedgwick's comments in his Presidential Address of 1831, in which he described them as ‘merely a gratuitous hypothesis, unfounded on any of the great analogies of nature’. Sedgwick, A., ‘Address of the President’, Proc. Geol. Soc. Land. (1831), 1, pp. 281–316.Google Scholar

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