The red notebook of Charles Darwin / edited, with an introduction and notes by Sandra Herbert.

  • Charles Darwin
Date:
1980
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Credit: The red notebook of Charles Darwin / edited, with an introduction and notes by Sandra Herbert. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    106/184 (page 92)
    92 SANDRA HERBERT The phrase 'Carnatic | It has been common practice of geologists' appears in very small handwriting in light brown ink, which indicates that it was written some time after the other entries on pages 56e-57. Fortunately, however, despite the fragmentary nature of the entry, there exists a reference in Darwin's notes from the voyage, again by way of addition made in light brown ink, which identifies the use of 'Carnatic' in this context. See Darwin MSS, Cambridge University Library, vol. 33, fol. 115 verso, for citation of the following reference. James Allardyce, 'On the Granitic Formation, and direction of the Primary Mountain Chains, of Southern India', Madras Journal of Literature and Science, vol. 4 (1836), pp. 332-333: It has been remarked that granite in America is found at a much lower level than in Europe: this is also the case throughout the south of India, by granite—meaning always granitic rocks ; for a regularly crystallized compound of quartz, felspar and mica, is not to be expected. The Carnatic, and several other similar tracts, occurring along both coasts, are, as granitic plains, surprisingly level: the slight tertiary diluvium with which they are covered, cannot be considered as a principal cause of this uniformity, for the rock itself is everywhere found near the surface : every appearance here indicates the granitic formation has at one time been a great deal more flat than it is generally understood to have been. Lyell, Principles of Geology, vol. 3, p. 84: It is clear, from what we before said of the gradual manner in which the principal cone [of Etna] increases, partly by streams of lava and showers of volcanic ashes ejected from the summit, partly by the throwing up of minor hills and the issuing of lava-currents on the flanks of the mountain, that the whole cone must consist of a series of cones enveloping others, the regularity of each being only interrupted by the interference of the lateral volcanos. This question mark and a line of scoring alongside the preceding sentence are in light brown ink. 'Rapilli' was equivalent in meaning to 'lapilli'. See, for example, the use of 'rapilli' by Daubeny {Volcanos, p. 251) and Humboldt {Personal Narrative, vol. 1, p. 232). This entry is in light brown ink. An oval depression towards the eastern end of Ascension Island was described by the resident English marines as the cricket ground because the bottom is smooth and perfectly horizontal. See Darwin MSS, Cambridge University Library, vol. 38(ii), fol. 941 verso. Lyell, Principles of Geology, vol. 3, p. Ill begins the section entitled Sea- cliflFs—proofs of successive elevation. Lyell's point is stated most succinctly on page 113 where he cites the testimony of another author writing on the alterations produced by the sea on calcareous rocks on the shores of Greece that there are four or five