Galapagos Travel Blog

The natural history of these islands is eminently curious, and well
deserves attention. Most of the organic productions are aboriginal
creations found nowhere else; there is even a difference between
the inhabitants of the different islands; yet all show a marked
relationship with those of America, though separated from that
continent by an open space of ocean, between 500 and 600 miles in
width. The archipelago is a little world within itself, or rather a
satellite attached to America, whence it has derived a few stray
colonists, and has received the general character of its indigenous
productions. Considering the small size of these islands, we feel
the more astonished at the number of their aboriginal beings, and
at their confined range. Seeing every height crowned with its
crater, and the boundaries of most of the lava-streams still
distinct, we are led to believe that within a period geologically
recent the unbroken ocean was here spread out. Hence, both in space
and time, we seem to be brought somewhat near to that great
fact--that mystery of mysteries--the first appearance of new beings
on this earth.