[Illustration: H. M. S. BEAGLE IN THE STRAITS OF MAGELLAN. MOUNT SARMIENTO IN THE DISTANCE.] Besides his elaborate work giving the full story of the expedition and the details of its scientific results--a book which has ever since been a standard authority, and still keeps students in active discussion and investigation--the voyage of the Beagle has to be credited with having supplied the occasion for the composition of the briefer and more popular account which has become one of the classics of English literature. More than this, and vastly transcending it in the importance of its bearing on the future of science, it was while going round the world and observing on the Beagle that those fundamental facts were gathered and stored in Mr. Darwin’s mind which, worked over and developed in after years and compared and combined with subsequently accumulated facts, bore fruit in the Origin of Species and the transformation of science that resulted upon the enunciation of Mr. Darwin’s theory of descent. We all regard the association of any object with great events or with those in which we have great interest as making it precious. We endow ships with a kind of personality, regard them affectionately, and often speak of them fondly, as if they were real living beings in whom we had an interest. Such feelings we might legitimately entertain with regard to the Beagle, so closely associated with the history we have referred to. Few associations deserve, in fact, to be more highly valued than that of this brig, the Beagle, with Mr. Darwin’s books and his theory. It is therefore a matter of legitimate concern to inquire into what was the fate of the famous vessel. The inquiry has been made, and is answered by the Rev. V. Marshall Law, of Oakland, Cal., whose account follows: “I was lying in my room, in Tsukiji, as I had been day after day, in 1890, watching the lazy roll of the school-ship in the Imperial Naval Academy, just a little to the south, when a caller and an old resident, Mr. Arthur Morris, said to me, ‘I see you have Darwin’s old ship, the Beagle, in plain sight out there.’ “‘Is that the Beagle?’ I asked in great surprise.