On at least one occasion, Charles Darwin took the time to share some of the little details involved in conducting geological fieldwork. He was one of a number of noted scientists who contributed to a book that was edited by John Herschel, and which had been commissioned by the Lords of the Admiralty. This book, A Manual of Scientific Enquiry, was designed to serve as a guide that the Royal Navy's medical officers could use when they were acting as naturalists. Darwin wrote the chapter on geology, which provided scientific novices with some of the things that many other geologists (both before and after) have only learned through painful experience:
A few cautions may be here inserted on the method of collecting. Every single specimen ought to be numbered with a printed number (those which can be read upside down having a stop after them) and a book kept exclusively for their entry. As the value of many specimens entirely depends on the stratum or locality whence they were procured being known, it is highly necessary that every specimen should be ticketed on the same day when collected. If this be not done, in after years the collector will never feel an absolute certainty that his tickets and references are correct. It is very troublesome ticketing every separate fossil from the same stratum, yet it is particularly desirable that this should be done; for when the species are subsequently compared by naturalists, mistakes are extremely liable to occur; and it should always be borne in mind, that misplaced fossils are far worse than none at all. Pill-boxes are very useful for packing fossils. Masses of clay or any soft rock may be brought home, if small fossil shells are abundant in them. Rock-specimens should be about two or three inches square, and half an inch thick; they should be folded up in paper. To save subsequent trouble, it will be found convenient to pack up and mark outside, sets of specimens from different localities. These details may appear trifling; but few are aware of the labour of opening and arranging a large collection, and such have seldom been brought home without some errors and confusion having crept in.
Darwin may have been able to come up with the idea of natural selection simply because he was the right intelligent person at the right place and the right time, but that wasn't why he was so good at making the case for his hypothesis. That came about because Darwin was a scientist to the core.
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Darwin was a naturalist, and, as your quote demonstrates, a good librarian. A careful person who had worthwhile and practical advice on organizing and logging specimen collections. While admirable, I am not convinced that all scientists are meticulous, or that all meticulous lab techs are scientists. Organizing specimens or data does make science much easier though.