On Monday, February 27, 1837, Charles Darwin delivered a talk at a meeting of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. Darwin wrote to his sister Caroline that night with news of his success, happily reporting that two of the original founders of the society, Whewell and Sedgwick, had taken an active part in the discussion afterwards. Whewell, then president of the Geological Society, was so impressed that, less than two weeks later, he invited Darwin to serve as the organization’s secretary. The paper described one of Darwin’s discoveries during his recent voyage on the HMS Beagle: fused sand tubes found near the Rio Plata in South America. These tubes, formed when lightning struck loose sand, were useful, Darwin believed, in discovering how lightning enters the ground during ...
Book excerpt from The Philosophical Breakfast Club
In Chapter 8, “A Divine Programmer,” author Laura J. Snyder explains how Darwin’s own ideas on evolution may have been influenced at lavish parties hosted by one of the club’s members, Charles Babbage.
Written byLaura J. Snyder
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