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.
Pages:
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57