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DEATH OF CHARLES DARWIN.

Mr. Charles Darwin, the naturalist and philosopher, breathed his last on Wednesday afternoon at his residence, Down House, Down, near Farnborough, Kent, at the age of seventy-three. He had been suffering for some little time past from weakness of the heart, but had continued to do a small amount of experimental work up to the last. He was taken ill on the night of Tuesday last, when he had an attack of pains in the chest with faintness and nausea. The latter lasted with more or less intermission during Wednesday, and culminated in his death, which took place at about four o'clock on Wednesday afternoon. He remained fully conscious to within a quarter of an hour of his death. His wife (a granddaughter of Mr. Josiah Wedgwood, F.R.S.) and several of his children were present at the closing scene. During his illness he had been attended by Dr. Norman Moore, Dr. Andrew Clarke, Dr. Moxon, and Dr. Alfrey, of St. Mary Cray. The eminent philosopher leaves, besides his widow, a family of five sons and two daughters. It has not yet been decided when his remains will be interred, but the place of his burial will be the quiet churchyard of the village of Down, near which place Professor Darwin spent the latter days of his life.

In addition to the works by which the name Professor Darwin is so well known, his two most recent works on the power movement in plants and the formation of vegetable mould will further enhance his fame. Quite recently, on the 16th March last, he read two papers before the Linnean Society on special subjects, having thus, it would seem, died in the midst the work which was congenial to him.

Charles Darwin was born at Shrewsbury on the 12th of February, 1809. His father was Dr. Robert Darwin, son of Erasmus Darwin. After studying Edinburgh University, and taking the degree of B.A. at Cambridge in 1831, he went round the world as naturalist in H.M.S. Beagle, returning to England in 1836. His interesting and popular "Voyage of a Naturalist" gives an account of this circumnavigation. In 1839 he published a "Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by H.M.S. Beagle;" and in 1840-43, the "Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle." These and other works gave him a wide and solid reputation, which was vastly extended in 1859, by the publication of a remarkable book "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection." Darwin there contends that all existing species arose from pre-existing species, and probably from a primitive germ, through natural selection; the organisms best fitted for surrounding circumstances surviving, while the weaker disappeared in the struggle for existence. He published "Fertilisation of Orchids" in 1862, 'Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication" in 1867, and the "Descent of Man" in 1871. In this work he seeks to prove that man is descended from a hairy quadruped with a tail, probably arboreal in its habits. His later works were "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals" (1872), and "Insectivorous Plants" (1875).

Unlike his grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, whose writings were often inelegant and badly arranged, the eminent author of the "Origin of Species" was endowed with literary gifts of no mean order, and hence the great popularity which many of his writings attained. But though the literary faculty may have been of his own creation, there can be no doubt that Darwin inherited from his father and grandfather his love of science and marvellous powers of research. Erasmus Darwin's works have been pronounced ludicrous and absurd in their language and imagery, but they contained nevertheless the germ of new theories which, subsequently developed and clothed in scientific form, were to startle succeeding ages. The most famous work of Erasmus, the "Botanic Garden," is grotesque and fantastical, but it abounds none the less in passages which have seldom been excelled for their elegant and forcible description of natural objects. Again the "Phytologia" of Erasmus has been pronounced remarkable for the number of novel and ingenious ideas which it contains, many of which were too far in advance of those of his contemporaries to be much esteemed when they appeared, but have been since recognised and generally adopted by the scientific world. Erasmus Darwin, for instance, insisted on the close analogy between plants and animals in their functions, showing that the difference between the two kingdoms is the necessary consequence of the difference between their wants, necessities, and habits of life.

Enough has been said to show that the great scientist whose death is announced this morning came of a learned stock, and that his case, at all events, the genius has been exemplified. The theory-loving, fanciful and often inaccurate and unscientific grandfather can hardly, however, have imagined that a man so near to himself in kin was in after years to figure as one of the greatest of living naturalists, for such the late Charles Darwin must be pronounced. He was in early years not alone distinguished for his scientific discoveries in geology and zoology, but acquired additional fame by the graceful and popular manner in which he was able to convey the results of his researches to the world. His "Voyage of a Naturalist," above alluded to, and which was the record of his trip in her Majesty's ship Beagle, was no mere dry scientific diary, but a work of entrancing interest, which at once won a name for the writer wherever the English language reached. During the four years which this voyage of scientific discovery lasted, Mr. Darwin, by his amazing industry and power of observation, collected a mass of facts the full digestion and assimilation of which occupied many years of his life. It was three years after his return home that he gave to the world his "Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History the Various Countries Visited by H.M.S. Beagle," and seven years after that again appeared his "Geological Observations in South America." Many other works similar in character followed, placing Darwin in the front rank of the geologists of the day. Darwin devoted his powerful mind no less to the subject of geology, and here also he achieved fame. One of the most remarkable scientific papers ever written for patient research, careful elaboration, and excellence of style and arrangement, is his "Monograph of the Family Cirripedia," which gives an accurate definition of every known species of animals commonly known as barnacles and see-acorns. The work made large additions to existing knowledge on the subject, and the remarkable caution exercised by the author in coming to his conclusions has often been commented on as a model of the manner in which all such works should be written. Darwin was in his fiftieth year when his celebrated work on the "Origin of Species" appeared, the theories started in which have continued up to the present day to be provocative of much controversy among men of science in all countries.