Through Henslow and the sound advice of his uncle Josiah Wedgwood (the son of the potter of Etruria) he accepted an offer to accompany Captain Fitzroy as naturalist on H. M. S. Beagle, which was to make an extensive surveying expedition. The voyage lasted from December 27th, 1831, to October 2d, 1836. It was, Darwin himself says, "by far the most important event in my life, and has determined my whole career." He had great opportunities of making explorations on land whilst the ship was engaged in her surveying work in various parts of the southern hemisphere, and made extensive collections of plants and animals, fossil as well as living forms, terrestrial as well as marine. On his return he was busy with the description of these results, and took up his residence in London. His 'Journal of Researches' was published in 1839, and is now familiar to many readers in its third edition, published in 1860 under the title 'A Naturalist's Voyage; Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries visited during the Voyage of H. M. S. Beagle round the World, under the command of Captain Fitzroy, R.N.' This was Darwin's first book, and is universally held to be one of the most delightful records of a naturalist's travels ever produced. It is to be placed alongside of Humboldt's 'Personal Narrative,' and is the model followed by the authors of other delightful books of travel of a later date, such as Wallace's 'Malay Archipelago,' Moseley's 'Naturalist on the Challenger,' and Belt's 'Naturalist in Nicaragua.' We have given in our selections from Darwin's writings the final pages of 'A Naturalist's Voyage' as an example of the style which characterizes the book. In it Darwin shows himself an ardent and profound lover of the luxuriant beauty of nature in the tropics, a kindly observer of men, whether missionaries or savages; an incessant student of natural things--rocks, plants, and animals; and one with a mind so keenly set upon explaining these things and assigning them to their causes, that none of his observations are trivial, but all of value and many of first-rate importance. The book is addressed, as are all of Darwin's books, to the general reader. It seemed to be natural to him to try and explain his observations and reasonings which led to them and followed from them to a wide circle of his fellow-men. The reader at once feels that Darwin is an honest and modest man, who desires his sympathy and seeks for his companionship in the enjoyment of his voyage and the interesting facts and theories gathered by him in distant lands. The quiet unassuming style of the narrative, and the careful explanation of details in such a way as to appeal to those who have little or no knowledge of natural history, gives a charm to the 'Naturalist's Voyage' which is possessed in no less a degree by his later books. A writer in the Quarterly Review in 1839 wrote, in reviewing the 'Naturalist's