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DEATH OF PROFESSOR DARWIN.

The Globe announces that Professor Darwin died yesterday at his residence in Down Kent. The news will create great surprise, inasmuch as nothing had transpired as to his being seriously ill. The deceased was born at Shrewsbury, February 12, 1809, being the son of Dr Robert Darwin, F.R.S., physician of that town. His grandfather was the celebrated Dr Erasmus Darwin, F.R.S., the poetical, philanthropic, and scientific physician of Lichfield, whose "Botanic Garden," "Temple of Nature," "Zoonomia," and "Origin of Society," were once extensively read and greatly admired. Mr Darwin's mother was a daughter of Josiah Wedgwood, the modern founder of the English pottery manufacture. He was educated first at the Shrewsbury grammar school, under Dr Butler, afterwards Bishop of Lichfield; he went to the University of Edinburgh in 1825, remained there two years, and next enter Christ's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1832, and M.A. in 1837. His hereditary aptitude for the study of natural science was early perceived by his instructors; the Rev. Mr Henslow, Professor of Botany at Cambridge, recommended him therefore to Captain Fitzroy and the Lords of the Admiralty in 1831, when a naturalist was to be chosen to accompany the second surveying expedition of H.M.S. Beagle in the Southern seas. The first expedition that of the Adventure and Beagle 1826-30 had explored the coasts of Patagonia; the Beagle, which sailed again December 27, 1831, and returned to England October 22, 1836, made a scientific circumnavigation of the globe. Mr Darwin served without salary, and partly paid his own expenses on condition that he should have the entire disposal of his zoological, botanical, and geological collections. On returning to England he published a "Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History" of the various countries he had visited. This originally appeared with a general account of the voyage by Captain Fitzroy, but was afterwards published separately. Since that time Mr Darwin has prosecuted his scientific investigations in England and for many years past he has resided near Farnborough in Kent, having married in 1831 his cousin, Miss Emma Wedgwood, by whom he has a large family. In addition to numerous papers on various scientific subjects, Mr Darwin edited the "Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle," and wrote three separate volumes on geology; viz., "The Structure and distribution of Coral Reefs," 1842, 2nd edit. 1874; "Geological Observations on Volcanic Islands," 1844; and "Geological Observations on South America," 1846. The most important of Mr Darwin's subsequent works are a "Monograph of the Family Cirrhipedia," published by the Ray Society in 1851-3, and on the "Fossil Species," by the Palæontographical Society. His "Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection," published in 1859, which has gone through several editions at home, and has been translated into French, German, Italian, Spanish, and other European languages, gave rise to much controversy. In this bold and ingenious essay he propounded his famous philosophical theory, of which the main proposition is, that all the various forms of vegetable and animal life, past or present, have been produced by a series of gradual changes in natural descent from parents to offspring. According to him all the animals, beasts, birds, reptiles, insects, fishes, and zoophytes, have descended from at most four or five progenitors; all the plants from no greater number. But analogy would lead to the belief that all animals and plants have together descended from some one prototype. Mr Darwin's subsequent works have had for their object the supplying the data on which he founded his conclusions. A treatise on the "Fertilization of Orchids," published in 1862, was followed by "Domesticated Animals and Cultivated Plants; or the Principles of Variation, Inheritance, Reversion, Crossing, Interbreeding, and Selection, under Domestication" in 1867. In 1871 he published the "Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex," 2 vols.; a new edition of which was published in 1874, in one volume, with large additions. In this work the author infers that "man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits." His more recent publications are "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals," 1872; "Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants," 2nd edit., 1875; "Insectivorous Plants," 1875; "Cross and Self-Fertilization in the Vegetable Kingdom," 1876; and "Different Forms of Flowers in Plants of the same Species," 1877. Mr Darwin, who has been elected a member of various foreign and English scientific bodies, received from the Royal Society the Royal and Copley medals for his various scientific works, and from the Geological Society the Wollaston Palladian medal. He has been created a knight of the order Pour de Mérité by the Prussian Government; and in June 1871, he was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Vienna. The University of Leyden conferred upon him the honorary degree of M.D. in Feb. 1875; and the University of Cambridge gave him the honorary degree of LL.D. Nov. 17, 1877. He was elected a corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences in Aug. 1878.