The Voyage of the Beagle: Charles Darwin's Journal of Researches

The Voyage of the Beagle is Charles Darwins account of the momentous voyage which set in motion the current of intellectual events leading to The Origin of Species. This Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction and notes by Janet Brown and Michael Neve.When HMS Beagle sailed out of Devonport on 27 December 1831 Charles Darwin was twenty-two and setting off on the voyage of a lifetime. His journal here reprinted in a shortened form shows a naturalist making patient observations concerning geology natural history people places and events. Volcanoes in the Galapagos the Gossamer spider of Patagonia and the Australasian coral reefs - all are to be found in these extraordinary writings. The insights made here were to set in motion the intellectual currents that led to the theory of evolution and the most controversial book of the Victorian age: The Origin of Species.This volume reprints Charles Darwins journal in a shortened form. In their introduction Janet Brown and Michael Neve provide a background to Darwins thought and work and this edition also includes notes maps appendices and an essay on scientific geology and the Bible by Robert FitzRoy Darwins friend and Captain of the Beagle.Charles Darwin (1809-82) a Victorian scientist and naturalist has become one of the most famous figures of science to date. The advent of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859 challenged and contradicted all contemporary biological and religious beliefs.If you enjoyed The Voyage of the Beagle you might enjoy Darwins On the Origin of Species also available in Penguin Classics. About the Author Charles Darwin a Victorian scientist and naturalist has become one of the most famous figures of science to date. Born in 1809 to an upper-middle-class medical family he was destined for a career in either medicine or the Anglican Church. However he never completed his medical education and his future changed entirely in 1831 when he joined HMSBeagle as a self-financing independent naturalist. On returning to England in 1836 he began to write up his theories and observations which culminated in a series of books most famouslyOn the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859 where he challenged and contradicted contemporary biological and religious beliefs with two decades worth of scientific investigation and theory. Darwins theory of natural selection is now the most widely accepted scientific model of how species evolve. He died in 1882 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. GALAPAGOS ARCHIPELAGOThe natural history of this archipelago is very remarkable: it seems to be a little world within itself; the greater number of its inhabitants both vegetable and animal being found nowhere else. As I shall refer to this subject again I will only here remark as forming a striking character on first landing that the birds are strangers to man. So tame and unsuspecting were they that they did not even understand what was meant by stones being thrown at them; and quite regardless of us they approached so close that any number of them might have been killed with a stick.The Beagle sailed round Chatham Island and anchored in several bays. One night I slept on shore on a part of the island where some black cones - the former chimneys of the subterranean heated fluids - were extraordinarily numerous. From one small eminence I counted sixty of these truncated hillocks which were all surmounted by a more or less perfect crater. The greater number consisted merely of a ring of red scoriae or slags cemented together: and their height above the plain of lave was not more than from 50 to 100 feet. From their regular form they gave the country a workshop appearance which strongly reminded me of those parts of Stratfordshire where the great iron foundries are most numerous.