There are other items on his publication list, including small contributions to various books, and some letters, not listed here. The nature of publications in the mid 19th century was different from what we see today, so it is hard to define what is a publication and what is not. For the present purposes I’ve excluded Gould’s monographs on birds, which make very heavy use of Darwin’s field descriptions. These were published between 1838 and 1841. I’ve also excluded two book chapters (in books written by others) on methods.<\/p>\n
Some of these works are clearly about geology, others clearly about biology. Assume that the first item on this list, “The Voyage” is about half geology and half biology. This assumption underestimates the amount of geology and divides a lot of stuff that is not in either of the two categories, but a rough estimate is suitable. This list ends with the first edition of Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species…” in 1859. The following graph shows the cumulative word count of writings (given the above caveats and adjustments) for geology vs. biology. I’ve added a rough estimate of Darwin’s contributions to Gould’s bird monographs.<\/p>\n
Notice that geology dominates in Darwin’s writings up until the origin. Thereafter, most of Darwin’s published works are biological and not geological (not counting reprinted or new editions of geological or biological publications) so over time the Biology line would overtake the geology line. But up to this point, Geology dominates.<\/p>\n The leftmost part of this graph, where biology seems to surpass geology, I’m sure, would reverse if I spent more time classifying the verbiage in The Voyage.<\/p>\n Darwin may well have become the world’s greatest biologist, but he started out as a notable geologist and made contributions to that field that lasted. Had he not written The Orign or any later biological work, and never published anything significant on Evolution, Darwin would today be a somewhat obscure but important geologist known to those who study South American geology, volcanic islands, and coral reefs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Everyone knows that Darwin was a biologist, and in many ways he was the first prominent modern biologist. Though Darwin scholars know this, many people do not realize that he was also a geologist. Really, he was mainly a geologist on the day he stepped foot on The Beagle for his famous five year tour. … Continue reading Charles Darwin, Geologist<\/span> ![\"i-366a1c604b687782e09d055f2165e8dd-DawrinWritingsOverTime-thumb-500x281-72602.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/DawrinWritingsOverTime.jpg\")
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