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.

    119/184 (page 105)
    NOTES 105 toutes ont la même origine, qu'elles datent toutes de la même époque; que réunies jadis, elles n'ont pu être séparées depuis, que par quelque révolution violente et subite. Quelle peut avoir été cette dernière révolution ?... Tous les fait se réunissent pour prouver que l'île toute entière ne formoit jadis qu'une énorme montagne brûlante; qu'épuisée, pour ainsi-dire, par ses éruptions, elle s'affaissa sur elle-même, engloutit dans ses abîmes la plus grande partie de sa propre masse, et que de cette voûte immense, il ne resta debout que les fondemens, dont les débris entr'ouverts sur différens points, forment les montagnes actuelles de l'île. Quelques pitons de forme conique, qui s'élèvant vers le centre du pays, notamment le Piton du centre, portent les caractères d'une origine postérieure à l'éboulement du cratère.. .. Also see VI, pp. 29-31. Bailly (note 136) as quoted in Péron, Voyage de découvertes aux terres australes, vol. 1, p. 295: De hautes montagnes granitiques... dont les sommités étoient presque entièrement nues, forment toute la côte orientale de cette partie de la terre de Diémen.... Also see p. 304 for a description of more of the east coast of Van Diemen's Land [Tasmania]. Henry Bolingbroke, A Voyage to the Demerary (London, 1807), p. 200 contains the passage Darwin quotes and pp. 200-201 the additional comment: This constant shooting upwards of the land, which is so sensible in the West Indies, has been little heeded by European mineralogists. 139 Webster, Narrative of a Voyage to the Southern Atlantic Ocean, vol. 1, p. 371 : Instances of earthquakes occuring in the island [St Helena] are on record. One took place in 1756, and in June 1780. On the 21st September 1817, one occurred, which it is said was particularly noticed by Napoleon, who thought that the Conqueror, 74, in which he had been, was blown up. The reference to antarctic vegetation pertains to Webster's discussion of the natural history of Cape Horn, Staten Island, and Deception Island in vol. 2, pp. 290-306. Darwin apparently searched Juan and Ulloa's A Voyage to South America for evidence connecting Indian habitation and climatic change, and could not find it. He was more successful in his reading of Antonio de Ulloa's Noticias americanas (2nd ed. ; Madrid, 1792). He later quoted from that work (p. 302) in translation, presumably his own, to the effect that Indians of one arid region in the Andes had lost the art of making durable bricks from mud. This suggested to Darwin that the local climate had once been wetter, which fitted his notion that the South American continent had undergone elevation in geologically recent times. Seeji?, pp. 409-411. Edmond Temple, Travels in Various Parts of Peru, Including a Year's Residence in Potosi (London, 1830), vol. 2, p. 10: In the course of this day's journey were to be seen, in well-chosen spots, many Indian villages and detached dwellings, for the most part in ruins. Up even to the very tops of the mountains, that line the