Tales from the Captain's Log by The National Archives

Author:The National Archives
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781472948687
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2017-04-07T04:00:00+00:00

The naturalist Charles Darwin, 1809–82, painted in 1840 by George Richmond.

The voyage of the Beagle was a key event in Darwin’s life and one of the most important scientific expeditions in history. It provided an unparalleled opportunity to collect a wide range of plants and animals and to make scientific observations on the geology and topography of the region explored. The Beagle was equipped with scientific instruments, including the latest marine chronometers used to calculate longitude and clinometers for measuring angles and elevations.

In the course of the expedition, the Beagle visited Brazil (April to July 1832), Tierra del Fuego (December 1832 to January 1833), Patagonia (April 1833 to January 1834), the Galapagos Islands (September to October 1835) and Cape Town (May to June 1836). As Darwin was not a regular member of the crew, he was not involved in the day-to-day duties of running the ship and often seized the opportunity to travel overland. These excursions were not without danger. In November 1834, he witnessed the eruption of the Osorno volcano in southern Chile, and in February 1835 he experienced a large earthquake that destroyed the Chilean town of Concepción. On another occasion, he was taken seriously ill with fever and needed five weeks to recover, staying in the house of an old school friend in the port city of Valparaíso, also in Chile. Darwin used his time on the mainland collecting a wide range of fossils, plants and insects that he then carefully catalogued and classified on his return to London.

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