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DARWIN'S DEATH.

After a brief illness, the death occurred yesterday in London of the distinguished scientist, Charles Robert Darwin, F.R.S. He was 73 years old. His father, R. W. Darwin, and grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, were prominent in the ranks of scientists. His wife, whom he married in 1839, was a grand-daughter of Josiah Wedgwood, the famous improver of earthenware.

Mr. Darwin's education was obtained in the University of Edinburg and at Cambridge, where he took his degree in 1831. In the same year he left for a trip of investigation in South America, being connected as naturalist with a government exploring expedition. His earlier publications were on geological and palaeontological subjects. His great work has been the elaboration of a theory of evolution, which he sets forth in his works on the "Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection," "The Descent of Man," and "Variations of Animals and Plants Under Domestications." The first scientist to frame a distinct hypothesis of development was Lamarck; but it was not until 1858, when Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace put forward the almost identical results of their independent studies, that the doctrine of the evolution of species was recognized in all its comprehensiveness. Even Mr. Darwin in his Origin of Species (1859) did not apply the doctrine of evolution to the human race, but he afterward elaborated it in the "Descent of Man nd Selection in Relation to Sex," published in 1871. 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."

Mr. Darwin's theories were generally accepted, wholly or in part, by scientific men, and a catalogue of the literature of Darwinism published some years since included 30 pages giving the titles of works and names of 312 authors. Mr. Darwin's son, Francis, will doubtless continue his work.