darwin's voyage map

HMS Beagle: Darwin’s Trip around the World

Charles Darwin sailed around the world from 1831–1836 as a naturalist aboard the HMS Beagle . His experiences and observations helped him develop the theory of evolution through natural selection.

Biology, Geography, Earth Science, Geology, Ecology

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Idea for Use in the Classroom

Charles Darwin set sail on the ship HMS Beagle on December 27, 1831, from Plymouth, England. Darwin was 22 years old when he was hired to be the ship’s naturalist . Most of the trip was spent sailing around South America. There Darwin spent considerable time ashore collecting plants and animals. Darwin filled notebooks with his observations of plants, animals, and geology . The trip was an almost five-year adventure and the ship returned to Falmouth, England, on October 2, 1836.

Throughout South America, Darwin collected a variety of bird specimens . One key observation Darwin made occurred while he was studying the specimens from the Galapagos Islands. He noticed the finches on the island were similar to the finches from the mainland, but each showed certain characteristics that helped them to gather food more easily in their specific habitat. He collected many specimens of the finches on the Galapagos Islands. These specimens and his notebooks provided Darwin with a record of his observations as he developed the theory of evolution through natural selection .

Have students work in pairs to use the map and the resources in the explore more tab to create a social media feed that includes five dates and posts from the expedition. Students may need to conduct additional research to ensure their proposed posts are factual and something Darwin would have seen on the trip. Help students brainstorm ideas for their posts by asking: What types of animals would Darwin have seen? Are any of them extinct today? What types of plants did he note? What types of geology did he see? What would you imagine some of the hardships the explorers would have encountered on this voyage?

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Related Resources

Charles Darwin and   ‍ The Voyage Of The Beagle

a Scroll Storytelling

Beagle sailed from Plymouth Sound on 27 December 1831 under the command of Captain Robert FitzRoy. While the expedition was originally planned to last two years, it lasted almost five—Beagle did not return until 2 October 1836. Darwin spent most of this time exploring on land (three years and three months on land; 18 months at sea).

Plymouth, U.K.

"Her Majesty's ship Beagle, a ten-gun brig, under the command of Captain Fitz Roy, R. N., sailed from Devonport on the 27th of December, 1831...to complete the survey of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego..."

Canary Islands

"On the 6th of January we reached Teneriffe but were prevented landing by fears of our bringing the cholera.  The next morning we saw the sun rise behind the rugged outline of the Grand Canary island and suddenly illuminate the Peak of Teneriffe whilst the lower parts were veiled in fleecy clouds."

"On the 16th of January, 1832, we anchored at Porto Praya, in St. Jago, the chief island of the Cape de Verd archipelago.  It then first dawned on me that I might perhaps write a book..."

Saint Peter and Paul Rocks

"In crossing the Atlantic we hove to the morning of February 16th close to the island of St Paul's. We found on St. Paul's only two kinds of birds—the booby and the noddy."

Fernando Noronha, Brazil

"The whole island is covered with wood; but from the dryness of the climate there is no appearance of luxuriance."

Salvador, Brazil

"The day has passed delightfully. Delight itself, however, is a weak term to express the feelings of a naturalist who, for the first time, has wandered by himself in a Brazilian forest."

Abrolhos Islets, Brazil

"...when not far distant from the Abrolhos Islets, my attention was called to a reddish-brown appearance in the sea. These are minute cylindrical confervae, in bundles or rafts of from twenty to sixty in each."

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

"During our stay at Brazil I made a large collection of insects."

Montevideo, Uruguay

"We anchored at Monte Video. The Beagle was employed in surveying the extreme southern and eastern coasts of America, south of the Plata, during the two succeeding years."

Bahía Blanca, Argentina

"We passed the night in Punta Alta, and I employed myself in searching for fossil bones; this point being a perfect catacomb for monsters of extinct races."

Port Desire, Argentina

"The guanaco, or wild llama, is the characteristic quadruped of the plains of Patagonia; it is the South American representative of the camel of the East. They are generally wild and extremely wary."

Tierra del Fuego

"In the morning the Captain sent a party to communicate with the Fuegians. When we came within hail, one of the four natives who were present advanced to receive us, and began to shout most vehemently, wishing to direct us where to land."

"I do not think that our Fuegians were much more superstitious than some of the sailors; for an old quartermaster firmly believed that the successive heavy gales, which we encountered off Cape Horn, were caused by our having the Fuegians on board."

York Minster

“…we fetched within a few miles of the great rugged mountain of York Minster (so called by Captain Cook), when a violent squall compelled us to shorten sail and stand out to sea.”

Falkland Islands

"An undulating land, with a desolate and wretched aspect, is everywhere covered by a peaty soil and wiry grass, of one monotonous brown colour."

Rio Negro, Argentina

"The country near the mouth of the river is wretched in the extreme: on the south side a long line of perpendicular cliffs commences, which exposes a section of the geological nature of the country."

Gregory Bay

Río santa cruz, argentina.

"...scarcely anything was known about this large river. Captain Fitz Roy now determined to follow its course as far as time would allow."

Valparaiso, Chile

"The Beagle anchored late at night in the bay of Valparaiso.  When morning came, everything appeared delightful. After Tierra del Fuego, the climate felt quite delicious. The view from the anchorage is very pretty."

Chiloé Island, Chile

"In the wooded island of Chiloe, which has an extremely humid climate, this little bird [Trochilus forficatus], skipping from side to side amidst the dripping foliage, is perhaps more abundant than almost any other kind."

Valdivia, Chile

"There is not much cleared land near Valdivia: after crossing a river at the distance of a few miles, we entered the forest, and then passed only one miserable hovel, before reaching our sleeping-place for the night."

Concepción, Chile

"The mayor-domo of the estate quickly rode down to tell me the terrible news of the great earthquake of the 20th:—'That not a house in Concepcion or Talcahuano (the port) was standing; that seventy villages were destroyed; and that a great wave had almost washed away the ruins of Talcahuano.'"

Iquique, Chile

"The town contains about a thousand inhabitants, and stands on a little plain of sand at the foot of a great wall of rock, 2000 feet in height, here forming the coast. The whole is utterly desert."

"Lima stands on a plain in a valley, formed during the gradual retreat of the sea. Steep barren hills rise like islands from the plain, which is divided, by straight mud-walls, into large green fields. In these scarcely a tree grows excepting a few willows, and an occasional clump of bananas and of oranges."

Galápagos, Equador

"As I was walking along I met two large tortoises, each of which must have weighed at least two hundred pounds: one was eating a piece of cactus, and as I approached, it stared at me and slowly walked away; the other gave a deep hiss, and drew in its head."

"The survey of the Galapagos Archipelago being concluded, we steered towards Tahiti and commenced our long passage of 3,200 miles."

Pahia, New Zeland

"New Zealand is favoured by one great natural advantage; namely, that the inhabitants can never perish from famine. The whole country abounds with fern: and the roots of this plant, if not very palatable, yet contain much nutriment."

Sydney, Australia

"At last we anchored within Sydney Cove. In the evening I walked through the town, and returned full of admiration at the whole scene. "

Hobart, Tasmania

"Late in the evening we anchored in the snug cove on the shores of which stands the capital of Tasmania. The first aspect of the place was very inferior to that of Sydney; the latter might be called a city, this is only a town. "

Cocos Islands

"The ring-formed reef of the lagoon-island is surmounted in the greater part of its length by linear islets. On entering, the scene was very curious and rather pretty; its beauty, however, entirely depended on the brilliancy of the surrounding colours."

"In the morning we passed round the northern end of Mauritius. From this point of view the aspect of the island equalled the expectations raised by the many well-known descriptions of its beautiful scenery."

Cape Town, South Africa

"With regard to the number of large quadrupeds, there certainly exists no quarter of the globe which will bear comparison with Southern Africa."

"This island, the forbidding aspect of which has been so often described, rises abruptly like a huge black castle from the ocean. Near the town, as if to complete nature's defence, small forts and guns fill up every gap in the rugged rocks."

Pernambuco, Brazil

"The flat swampy land on which Pernambuco stands is surrounded, at the distance of a few miles, by a semicircle of low hills, or rather by the edge of a country elevated perhaps two hundred feet above the sea."

"...thence we proceeded to the Azores, where we stayed six days."

Falmouth, U.K.

"On the 2nd of October we made the shores of England; and at Falmouth I left the Beagle, having lived on board the good little vessel nearly five years."

London, U.K.

23 years after Darwin's return, On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life is published by John Murray.

Hi, I'm Carlos Toledo. A Product Designer based in Florianopolis, Brazil focused on designing and developing amazing web experiences

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Darwin's letters: World Map

Darwin correspondence project.

• About Darwin overview
• Family life overview
• Darwin on childhood
• Darwin on marriage
• Darwin’s observations on his children
• Darwin and fatherhood
• The death of Annie Darwin
• Visiting the Darwins
• Voyage of HMS Beagle
• What Darwin read overview
• Darwin’s student booklist
• Books on the Beagle
• Darwin’s reading notebooks
• On the Origin of Species overview
• The writing of "Origin"
• Abstract of Darwin’s theory
• Alfred Russel Wallace’s essay on varieties
• Charles Darwin and his publisher
• Review: The Origin of Species
• Darwin's notes for his physician, 1865
• Darwin’s photographic portraits
• Have you read the one about....
• Six things Darwin never said – and one he did overview
• The evolution of a misquotation
• Portraits of Charles Darwin: a catalogue overview
• 1.1 Ellen Sharples pastel
• 1.2 George Richmond, marriage portrait
• 1.3 Thomas Herbert Maguire, lithograph
• 1.4 Samuel Laurence drawing 1
• 1.5 Samuel Laurence drawing 2
• 1.6 Ouless oil portrait
• 1.7 Ouless replica
• 1.8 anonymous drawing, after Ouless
• 1.9 Rajon, etching after Ouless
• 1.10 Rajon etching, variant state
• 1.11 Laura Russell, oil
• 1.12 Marian Huxley, drawing
• 1.13 Louisa Nash, drawing
• 1.14 William Richmond, oil
• 1.15 Albert Goodwin, watercolour
• 1.16 Alphonse Legros, drypoint
• 1.17 Alphonse Legros drawing
• 1.18 John Collier, oil in Linnean
• 1.19 John Collier, oil in NPG
• 1.20 Leopold Flameng etching, after Collier
• 1.21 window at Christ's College Cambridge
• 2.1 Thomas Woolner bust
• 2.2 Thomas Woolner metal plaque
• 2.3 Wedgwood medallions
• 2.4 Wedgwood plaque
• 2.5 Wedgwood medallions, 2nd type
• 2.6 Adolf von Hildebrand bust
• 2.7 Joseph Moore, Midland Union medal
• 2.8 Alphonse Legros medallion
• 2.9 Legros medallion, plaster model
• 2.10 Moritz Klinkicht, print from Legros
• 2.11 Christian Lehr, plaster bust
• 2.12 Allan Wyon, Royal Society medal
• 2.13 Edgar Boehm, statue in the NHM
• 2.14 Boehm, Westminster Abbey roundel
• 2.15 Boehm terracotta bust (NPG)
• 2.16 Horace Montford statue, Shrewsbury
• 2.17 Montford, statuette
• 2.18 Montford, Carnegie bust
• 2.19 Montford, bust at the Royal Society
• 2.20 Montford, terracotta bust, NPG
• 2.21 Montford, relief at Christ's College
• 2.22 L.-J. Chavalliaud statue in Liverpool
• 2.23 Hope Pinker statue, Oxford Museum
• 2.24 Herbert Hampton statue, Lancaster
• 2.25 Henry Pegram statue, Birmingham
• 2.26 Linnean Society medal
• 2.27 William Couper bust, New York
• 2.28 Couper bust in Cambridge
• 3.1 Antoine Claudet, daguerreotype
• 3.2 Maull and Polyblank photo 1
• 3.3 Maull and Polyblank photo 2
• 3.4 William Darwin, photo 1
• 3.5 William Darwin, photo 2
• 3.6 William Darwin, photo 3
• 3.7 Leonard Darwin, photo on verandah
• 3.8 Leonard Darwin, interior photo
• 3.9 Leonard Darwin, photo on horseback
• 3.10 Ernest Edwards, 'Men of Eminence'
• 3.11 Edwards, in Illustrated London News
• 3.12 Edwards, second group of photos
• 3.13 Edwards 'Representative Men'
• 3.14 Julia Margaret Cameron, photos
• 3.15 George Charles Wallich, photo
• 3.16 Oscar Rejlander, photos
• 3.17 Lock and Whitfield, 'Men of Mark'
• 3.18 Elliott and Fry photos, c.1869-1871
• 3.19 Elliott and Fry photos c.1880-1
• 3.20 Elliott and Fry, c.1880-1, verandah
• 3.21 Herbert Rose Barraud, photos
• 4.1 Albert Way, comic drawings
• 4.2 Augustus Earle, caricature drawing
• 4.3 Alfred Crowquill, caricature
• 4.4 Thomas Huxley, caricature sketch
• 4.5 William Beard, comic painting
• 4.6 Thomas Nast, cartoon
• 4.7 'Vanity Fair', caricature
• 4.8 'Vanity Fair', preliminary study
• 4.9 'Graphic', cartoon
• 4.10 'Hornet' caricature of Darwin
• 4.11 'Fun' cartoon, 'A little lecture'
• 4.12 'Fun', Wedding procession
• 4.13 'Fun' cartoon by Griset, 'Emotional'
• 4.14 'Fun' cartoon, 'That troubles'
• 4.15 George Cruikshank, comic drawing
• 4.16 Joseph Simms, physiognomy
• 4.17 'Figaro', unidentifiable 1871
• 4.18 'Figaro' chromolithograph 1
• 4.19 George Montbard, caricature
• 4.20 Frederick Waddy, caricature
• 4.21 Gegeef, 'Our National Church', 1
• 4.22 Gegeef et al., 'Our National Church', 2
• 4.23 Gegeef, 'Battle Field of Science'
• 4.24 'Daily Graphic', Nast satire
• 4.25 'Punch' 1877 re. Cambridge doctorate
• 4.26 Christmas card caricature, monkeys
• 4.27 'Four founders of Darwinismus'
• 4.28 'English celebrities' montage
• 4.29 Richard Grant White, 'Fall of man'
• 4.30 'La Petite Lune', Gill cartoon
• 4.31 'La Lune Rousse', Gill cartoon
• 4.32 Anis liqueur label
• 4.33 'Harper's Weekly', Bellew caricature
• 4.34 'Punch', Sambourne cartoon 1
• 4.35 Frederick Sem, caricature
• 4.36 Sem, Chistmas card
• 4.37 'Mosquito' satire
• 4.38 Franz Goedecker, caricature
• 4.39 'Moonshine' magazine cartoon
• 4.40 'Phrenological Magazine'
• 4.41 'Punch', Sambourne cartoon 2
• 4.42 'Punch' Sambourne cartoon 3
• 4.43 'Illustrated London News' article
• 4.44 'Puck' cartoon 1
• 4.45 'Puck' cartoon 2
• 4.46 'Puck' cartoon 3
• 4.47 'Puck' cartoon 4
• 4.48 'Puck', cartoon 5
• 4.49 Alfred Bryan, caricature
• 4.50 Cigar box lid design
• 4.51 Frederick Holder 'Life and Work'
• 4.52 'Wasp' caricature
• 4.53 Claud Warren, 'Outlines of Hands'
• 4.54 jubilees of Queen Victoria
• 4.55 Harry Furniss caricature
• 4.56 'Larks' cartoon
• 4.57 silhouette cartoon
• 4.58 'Simian, savage' . . . drawings
• 4.59 'Simplicissimus' cartoon
• Darwin and the experimental life overview
• What is an experiment?
• From morphology to movement: observation and experiment
• Fool's experiments
• Experimenting with emotions
• Animals, ethics, and the progress of science
• Fake Darwin: myths and misconceptions
• Darwin's bad days
• Darwin’s first love
• The letters overview
• Darwin's life in letters overview
• 1821-1836: Childhood to the Beagle voyage
• 1837-43: The London years to 'natural selection'
• 1844-1846: Building a scientific network
• 1847-1850: Microscopes and barnacles
• 1851-1855: Death of a daughter
• 1856-1857: The 'Big Book'
• 1858-1859: Origin
• 1860: Answering critics
• 1861: Gaining allies
• 1862: A multiplicity of experiments
• 1863: Quarrels at home, honours abroad
• 1864: Failing health
• 1865: Delays and disappointments
• 1866: Survival of the fittest
• 1867: A civilised dispute
• 1868: Studying sex
• 1869: Forward on all fronts
• 1870: Human evolution
• 1871: An emptying nest
• 1872: Job done?
• 1873: Animal or vegetable?
• 1874: A turbulent year
• 1875: Pulling strings
• 1876: In the midst of life
• 1877: Flowers and honours
• 1878: Movement and sleep
• 1879: Tracing roots
• 1880: Sensitivity and worms
• 1881: Old friends and new admirers
• 1882: Nothing too great or too small
• Darwin's works in letters overview
• Journal of researches
• Living and fossil cirripedia
• Before Origin: the ‘big book’ overview
• Dates of composition of Darwin's manuscript on species
• Rewriting Origin - the later editions overview
• How old is the earth?
• The whale-bear
• Origin: the lost changes for the second German edition
• Climbing plants
• Insectivorous plants
• Forms of flowers
• Cross and self fertilisation
• Life of Erasmus Darwin
• Movement in Plants
• About the letters
• Lifecycle of a letter film overview
• Editing a Letter
• Working in the Darwin archive
• Capturing Darwin’s voice: audio of selected letters
• Correspondence with women
• The hunt for new letters
• Editorial policy and practice overview
• Full notes on editorial policy
• Symbols and abbreviations
• Darwin's letters: a timeline
• Have you read the one about...
• Charles Darwin: A Life in Letters
• Darwin in Conversation exhibition
• Diagrams and drawings in letters
• Favourite Letters overview
• Be envious of ripe oranges: To W. D. Fox, May 1832
• That monstrous stain: To J. M. Herbert, 2 June 1833
• My most solemn request: To Emma Darwin, 5 July 1844
• Our poor dear dear child: To Emma Darwin, [23 April 1851]
• I beg a million pardons: To John Lubbock, [3 September 1862]
• Prize possessions: To Henry Denny, 17 January [1865]
• How to manage it: To J. D. Hooker, [17 June 1865]
• A fly on the flower: From Hermann Müller, 23 October 1867
• Reading my roommate’s illustrious ancestor: To T. H. Huxley, 10 June 1868
• A beginning, & that is something: To J. D. Hooker, [22 January 1869]
• Perfect copper-plate hand: From Adolf Reuter, 30 May 1869
• Darwin’s favourite photographer: From O. G. Rejlander, 30 April 1871
• Your letter eternalized before us: From N. D. Doedes, 27 March 1873
• Lost in translation: From Auguste Forel, 12 November 1874
• I never trusted Drosera: From E. F. Lubbock, [after 2 July] 1875
• From Argus pheasant to Mivart: To A. R. Wallace, 17 June 1876
• Wearing his knowledge lightly: From Fritz Müller, 5 April 1878
• Terms of engagement: To Julius Wiesner, 25 October 1881
• Intellectual capacities: From Caroline Kennard, 26 December 1881
• Darwin plays overview
• 'Emma' audio play
• 'Frank' audio play
• 'Like confessing a murder' audio play
• 'Re: Design' dramatisation overview
• Dramatisation script
• Browse all Darwin letters in date order
• List of correspondents
• Commentary overview
• Evolution overview
• Natural selection
• Sexual selection
• Inheritance
• Correlation of growth: deaf blue-eyed cats, pigs, and poison
• Natural Selection: the trouble with terminology Part I
• Survival of the fittest: the trouble with terminology Part II
• Darwin’s species notebooks: ‘I think . . .’
• Geology overview
• Darwin and geology
• Darwin’s introduction to geology
• The geology of the Beagle voyage
• Darwin and coral reefs
• Darwin’s earthquakes
• Darwin and the Geological Society
• Darwin and Glen Roy
• Bibliography of Darwin’s geological publications
• Life sciences overview
• Darwin and Down overview
• Darwin’s hothouse and lists of hothouse plants
• Species and varieties
• The evolution of honeycomb
• A tale of two bees
• Beauty and the seed overview
• Mauro Galetti: profile of an ecologist
• Casting about: Darwin on worms
• Was Darwin an ecologist?
• Dipsacus and Drosera
• Darwin and barnacles overview
• Darwin’s study of the Cirripedia
• Darwin and vivisection overview
• Vivisection: draft petition
• Vivisection: BAAS committee report
• Vivisection: first sketch of the bill
• Vivisection: Darwin's testimony
• 'An Appeal' against animal cruelty
• Biodiversity and its histories
• Human nature overview
• Darwin on human evolution
• The expression of emotions overview
• Emotion experiment overview
• Results of the Darwin Online Emotions Experiment
• Face of emotion
• Darwin’s queries on expression
• The origin of language overview
• Language: key letters
• Language: Interview with Gregory Radick
• Film series podcasts
• Religion overview
• Darwin and design
• What did Darwin believe?
• Darwin and the Church
• British Association meeting 1860
• Darwin and religion in America
• Essays and reviews by Asa Gray overview
• Darwiniana – Preface
• Essay: Design versus necessity
• Essay: Natural selection & natural theology
• Essay: Evolution and theology
• Essay: What is Darwinism?
• Essay: Evolutionary teleology
• Science and religion Interviews overview
• Interview with Emily Ballou
• Interview with Simon Conway Morris
• Interview with John Hedley Brooke
• Interview with Randal Keynes
• Interview with Tim Lewens
• Interview with Pietro Corsi
• For the curious... overview
• Cordillera Beagle expedition
• The Darwin family
• Darwin’s plant experiments
• Behind the scenes
• Darwin’s Networks
• Darwin and the Beagle voyage
• Darwin and working from home
• Darwin, cats and cat shows
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• Darwin's illness
• Plant or animal? (Or: Don’t try this at home!)
• Strange things sent to Darwin in the post
• People overview
• Key correspondents
• Beagle voyage networks
• Family and friends
• Darwin's scientific network
• Readers and critics
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• People pages in alphabetical order
• German and Dutch photograph albums overview
• Photograph album of German and Austrian scientists
• Photograph album of Dutch admirers
• German poems presented to Darwin
• List of all people mentioned in letters
• Learning overview
• Ages 7-11 overview
• Darwin The Collector
• Detecting Darwin
• Darwin And Evolution
• Darwin's Fantastical Voyage
• Home learning: 7-11 years
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• Darwin and Religion
• Doing Darwin’s Experiments
• How dangerous was Darwin?
• Offer of a lifetime
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• Beagle Voyage
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• Schools Gallery: Using Darwin’s letters in the classroom
• Universities overview
• Letters as a primary source overview
• Scientific networks
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• Controversy
• Discussion questions and essay questions
• Suggested reading
• Getting to know Darwin's science overview
• Biogeography
• Variation under domestication
• Instinct and the evolution of mind
• Floral dimorphism
• Power of movement in plants
• Dining at Down House
• Darwin and human nature overview
• Moral nature
• Race, civilization, and progress
• Women and science overview
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• Women as a scientific audience
• Referencing women’s work
• Darwin in public and private
• Darwin as mentor
• Discussion questions
• Darwin timeline
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• Resources overview
• Historical documents
• Interactive
• About us overview
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• The correspondence of Charles Darwin
• Charles Darwin: the Beagle letters
• Charles Darwin’s letters: a selection 1825-1859
• Evolution: Selected Letters of Charles Darwin 1860-1870
• The correspondence 1821-60: anniversary paperback set
• A voyage round the world
• Calendars to the correspondence of Charles Darwin
• Darwin and women: a selection of letters
• Research initiatives overview
• Darwin and ecological science
• Darwin and religion: a definitive web resource
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• Darwin and gender projects by Harvard students
• Darwin’s Women: Short Film
• Epsilon: a collaborative digital framework
• Funding overview
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• Frederick Burkhardt (1912-2007)
• Anne Schlabach Burkhardt (1916–2012)

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Voyage of the beagle.

From December 1831, Darwin travelled round the world on the Admiralty surveying vessel, HMS Beagle . This map features letters written as the voyage was planned, persuading his father to let him go, deciding what to take with him, and getting advice on how to send specimens home, as well as letters from the places he visited, describing his adventures collecting rocks, fossils, insects, plants, animals and fish. He theorised about the origins of coral reefs and the elevation of the Andes, and sent home impressions of the people and landscape of the Falkland Islands, Tierra del Fuego, Chiloé, Tahiti, Tasmania and Mauritius. Family and friends wrote back with news of marriages, illnesses and social gatherings and advice on what to collect, packing his finds and further avenues of research. When Darwin returned in October 1836 he was a scientific celebrity and an experienced researcher.

Expression questionnaire

'Is astonishment expressed by the eyes and mouth being open wide, and by the eyebrows being raised?' 

This was one of a list of very precise questions Darwin circulated for his research on the expression of emotions.  Handwritten copies were sent out in 1867 and they were later revised and printed for ease of distribution. The recipients included colleagues, friends, and relations, but he also mobilised a network of diplomats, travellers, missionaries, merchants, naturalists, and engineers around the world. The map shows the global scope of Darwin's questionnaire. The responses described expression in remote peoples of Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, China, Ceylon, southern and western Africa, North and South America, and became valuable data for his book,  The expression of the emotions in man and animals  (1872).

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The Voyages

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RETRACING THE VOYAGES OF HMS BEAGLE

A round-the-world sailing voyage is a unique adventure. The modern Beagle will retrace one of the most famous journeys in history, which stopped at many ports across the world from South America to Australia to South Africa.

HISTORY TIMELINE

KEY HISTORICAL EVENTS

Read about the key events in the history of HMS  Beagle and those who sailed with her using our  history timeline . Launched in 1820, HMS  Beagle  completed three scientific expeditions and travelled all over the globe. She is most famous for her second voyage, captained by Robert FitzRoy, on which a young Charles Darwin travelled. Find out about the nineteenth-century history, including the birth and death of FitzRoy and Darwin, the expedition voyages of HMS  Beagle , and the publication of  On the Origin of Species  and Darwin’s autobiography. Also catch up on the recent history and progress of the HMS Beagle Project.

SECOND VOYAGE

A VOYAGE OF EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY

Using our  map of HMS  Beagle ’s second voyage , find out about her route and some of the key scientific observations and collections made along the way. HMS  Beagle  left England for her second voyage on 27 December 1831 tasked with surveying the southern coast of South America. She was captained by Robert FitzRoy, and carried a young Charles Darwin onboard as the ship’s ‘naturalist’. When HMS  Beagle  returned to England in October 1836, Darwin had sailed 40,000 miles around the world, explored over 2,000 miles inland and collected more than 5,000 specimens. His notes show that he already understood how his experiences and finds were likely to challenge the established view of the unchanging nature of species.

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The HMS Beagle Project is managed by the HMS Beagle Trust, a registered charity. Reg No: 1126192. Reg Office: Yelverton House, St John Street, Whitland, SA34 0AW, Wales. Website managed by WebAdept UK . Copyright © HMS Beagle Trust.

• HISTORY MAGAZINE

Darwin's first—and only—trip around the world began a scientific revolution

The plants and animals encountered on the five-year voyage of the 'Beagle' provided the foundation for Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

During August 1831 Charles Darwin , recently graduated from the University of Cambridge, was stuck at home on exactly the same principle, he complained, as a person would choose to remain in a debtors’ prison. At age 22, Darwin was fascinated by the natural world and inspired by the adventure stories of the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt , whose travels across Central and South America in the early 1800s was the basis of a series of extensive travelogues. Darwin was desperate to undertake a similar scientific odyssey. An attempt to organize an expedition to Tenerife in the Canary Islands off the coast of northwest Africa, had fallen through.

The awful necessity of earning his own living, probably as the vicar of a country parish, seemed inescapable. And then a letter arrived offering Darwin an amazing opportunity. The writer was one of Darwin’s former teachers, John Stevens Henslow, professor of botany at Cambridge. Henslow informed Darwin that he had recommended him to accompany Captain Robert FitzRoy on an expedition aboard the H.M.S. Beagle . He wrote: “I state this not on the supposition of yr. being a finished Naturalist, but as amply qualified for collecting, observing, & noting any thing worthy . . . in Natural History.”

Robert FitzRoy was an aristocratic but mercurial naval captain. In 1826 he had set off as a crew member on the Beagle to carry out a survey of South America. In the course of the voyage, he was placed in command of the expedition, from which he returned in 1830. The letter from Henslow to Darwin was written as FitzRoy was under instructions from the Admiralty to mount a second survey expedition to Tierra del Fuego, an archipelago at the tip of South America. The primary motive of the voyage was to chart the coast of South America. A secondary motive was scientific exploration. FitzRoy wanted a naturalist aboard, both to carry out scientific work and to keep him company.

Despite Henslow’s recommendation, however, Darwin’s place was not immediately assured. FitzRoy’s first impression of the young naturalist was not entirely favorable. Darwin’s father expressed skepticism at the expense and dangerous nature of the venture. The Beagle was the overcrowded home to a total crew of 74. Shipwreck was a common hazard, death through disease an even greater one, and much of South America was lawless. To try to convince his father, Darwin sought help from his mother’s brother, the industrialist Josiah Wedgwood II. Wedgwood’s daughter Emma had been a childhood friend of Darwin’s, and the two first cousins would later marry, in 1839.

Setting sail

In the end both FitzRoy and his father were persuaded that he should go, and on December 27, 1831, the Beagle sailed out of Plymouth with Darwin on board. Originally planned for two years, the voyage stretched to five, and took Darwin not only to South America but to Tahiti, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, and many of the Atlantic and Pacific islands in between. Darwin often left the ship to travel hundreds of miles on horseback.

Life aboard the Beagle

First launched in 1820, the Beagle started life as a brig (a swift two-masted vessel), 90 feet long and 25 feet wide. It was reconditioned as a three-masted bark in 1825, and later set off to South America under the command of Pringle Stokes. Stokes died during the mission, and Robert FitzRoy took command. On the Beagle’ s return in 1830, it was remodeled again for a second surveying expedition in which Darwin would participate (1831-36); the route would take the Beagle to South America and then make a circumnavigation of the globe.

The 74-person crew for this second voyage consisted of officers, midshipmen, sailors and porters, and marines, who all formed the naval crew; in addition, there were nine noncommissioned members, including Darwin. It was a large crew for a ship of such modest dimensions, as Darwin wrote: “The vessel is a very small one . . . but every body says it is the best sort for our work . . . The want of room is very bad, but we must make the best of it.”

Darwin spent most of his time in the stern where Captain FitzRoy’s cabin was located. Darwin’s cabin was outfitted with a folding bunk and bookshelves. He also had a chest in which to store the samples collected ashore. Darwin soon felt at ease on the Beagle. He wrote in February 1832: “I find to my great surprise that a ship is singularly comfortable for all sorts of work. Everything is so close at hand, & being cramped, make one so methodical, that in the end I have been a gainer. I already have got to look at going to sea as a regular quiet place, like going back to home after staying away from it.”

In the course of this extraordinary journey, he filled notebook after notebook with sketches and observations. Darwin shipped home barrels, boxes, and bottles by the dozen, filled with pressed plants, fossils, rocks, skins, and skeletons. He explored landscapes that ranged from the gray desolation of the Falklands to the glorious heights of the Andes, from the wild glaciated cliffs of the Beagle Channel to the beaches of Tahiti, from the tropical lushness of Rio to the dripping rainforest of southern Chile.

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Early observations

First landfall was the volcanic island of St. Jago (now Santiago) in the Cape Verde Islands. After three weeks of seasickness, Darwin threw himself enthusiastically into his first independent fieldwork, identifying rock samples and recording a cross section of the volcanic strata. He had the best equipment he could buy: a microscope, a clinometer for measuring angles, geological hammers, and a vasculum (a container for botanical specimens), but he was still a novice. He boasted in a letter to his Cambridge teacher, John Stevens Henslow, that his discovery of a color-changing octopus “appears to be new.” It wasn’t, and Henslow gently disabused him. ( Here's how animals are able to manipulate their color. )

By February 15, 1832, they were resupplying on the remote rocky islets of St. Paul’s, and two weeks later, the Beagle crossed the Equator and reached the coast of Brazil. Darwin, however, injured in the final leg of the journey, was forced to stay on board, so it was April before he first set foot in South America, at Botafogo Bay near Rio de Janeiro.

For the next few months as the crew of the Beagle sailed up and down the coast checking and rechecking naval charts, Darwin stayed ashore, happily exploring the Corcovado mountains near Rio, shifting from geology to zoology and building an impressive collection of spiders and wasps .

A man of letters

During the Beagle ’s voyage, Darwin famously amassed a huge scientific collection of plants and animals, but another important legacy is his prolific and detailed correspondence with family and friends. The letters reflect Darwin’s mood over the five years of the voyage and—despite the ups and downs—suggest he was never disheartened. His words to his loved ones also expose the man behind the scientist. His humanity and personality quirks are on full display—from delighting in his private cabin on the ship to asking his sisters to mail him more “Prometheans,” or matches.

The ship went south again at the end of June. This time he went, too, encountering porpoises, whales, penguins, and seals. The expedition dropped anchor at the end of July at the mouth of the majestic Río de la Plata. Both Montevideo on the north bank, where they helped put down a revolt, and Buenos Aires on the south bank, where they were fired on as suspected cholera-carriers, were dangerous places. The flat and empty landscape seemed to Darwin a poor exchange for the lushness of the tropics. (Related: The tropics are home to 80 percent of the world's species, but they're losing wildlife fast. )

All the while, Darwin’s collections were annoying the ship’s purser who complained about the clutter. Darwin had already learned some taxidermy, and now experimented with other ways of preserving unfamiliar specimens using wax, spirits, and thin sheets of lead—with mixed results. ( See how one museum moved hundreds of taxidermy animals. )

Darwin's birds

The first letters from home brought criticism and advice from Henslow, on whose doorstep Darwin’s treasures were landing. It is another reminder of how Darwin's voyage was a learning experience: His labels weren’t securely fixed, beetles had been crushed, mice had gone moldy, and one mystery bottle looked like “the remains of an electric explosion, a mere mass of soot.”

By September 1832 they were surveying the coast of Argentina. Already a good shot, Darwin learned to use a bola (a weighted lasso) to bring down ostriches and took time off from “admiring the Spanish ladies” to discover his first large fossilized vertebrate—a Megatherium, an extinct species of giant ground sloth. Darwin’s curiosity was piqued by its similarity to a species of agouti, a rodent native to South America. In November he returned to Buenos Aires to restock for the voyage to Cape Horn.

A year after leaving home, the Beagle , like the Endeavour of Captain Cook and Joseph Banks before it, finally anchored in the Bay of Good Success on the coast of Tierra del Fuego. It was magnificent but inhospitable country. They spent Christmas on Hermit Island, just west of the cape, but were repeatedly beaten back by gales. One of their whaleboats was smashed against the ship in a storm, and Darwin lost notes and specimens.

After arriving at Ponsonby Sound, FitzRoy and some of the crew, including Darwin, headed off in two of the ship’s boats on a 300-mile round trip to chart the farther reaches of the Beagle Channel, named for FitzRoy’s first adventures there. It was spectacular country. Darwin’s letters home glitter with descriptions of the glaciers’ beauty. But they were dangerous as well: When a large sheet of ice crashed into the water sending a surge along the shore toward their boats, it was Darwin who led the desperate race to drag them to safety. FitzRoy named the place Darwin Sound in his honor.

Reptilian relationships

On April 18, 1835 Darwin wrote a long letter from Valparaíso (Chile) to his friend and former teacher, the botanist and geologist John Stevens Henslow. He described the local lizards and invited his colleagues’ opinions. Darwin's methodical approach to research and his generosity and openness to academic cooperation is on full display: “I also send a small bottle with 2 Lizards: one of them is Viviparous, as you will see by the accompanying notice.” Darwin had heard of a French scholar who had found a similar lizard, so he urged his friend to “hand over the Specimens to some good Lizardologist & Comparative Anatomist to publish an account of their internal structure.”

Foiled in their attempt to round the cape, they sailed east and on March 1, 1833, arrived at the Falkland Islands where the navy was keen to discover safe harbors. Concerned that the Beagle crew alone could not complete their mission, FitzRoy bought another boat: the Adventure. Both ships returned in April to Montevideo, where Darwin set off on his first long inland expedition, accompanied by the Beagle’ s cabin boy, Syms Covington, whom Darwin had hired as combined servant and research assistant. They did not rendezvous with the ship until September, in Buenos Aires.

Rounding the Cape

Both the Beagle and the Adventure headed south in December, retracing the route of the previous year as far as Tierra del Fuego. There, Darwin finally found something he had been looking for: a new species of rhea (originally named Rhea darwinii ), an ostrich-like bird—but only after half of it had been eaten for the crew’s dinner.

By March 1834 they were once again forced to head back to the Falklands without rounding the cape. The Beagle’ s keel had been badly damaged, so by the middle of April it was beached at the mouth of the Rio Santa Cruz for repairs. FitzRoy took advantage of the opportunity to mount an expedition upriver. They rowed and dragged the boats 140 miles through uncharted territory. It took three weeks to go up and three days to sail back down, Darwin all the while was adding to his observations. ( These scientists spent months exploring the Okavango delta. )

Darwin's fossils

After the Beagle was repaired, it made a third attempt to round the cape. Perhaps the third time was the charm, because this time they made it. In June 1834 the expedition finally reached the west coast of South America.

The next year was spent following the coastline of Chile and Peru in much the same manner as the previous two and a half years had been spent in Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina: The Beagle followed a switchback course, surveying and resurveying the complex archipelago of the coastline.

Darwin loathed the incessantly dripping and impenetrable temperate rainforest of southern Chile, and was frequently absent organizing his own inland expeditions. He traveled southeast through the Andes from the colonial elegance of Valparaíso to Santiago. It was largely uncharted, so he relied on the help of locals who drew maps, advised on safe routes, and helped hire guides and horses. One looked after him for several weeks when he fell dangerously ill, probably with typhoid fever. Meanwhile FitzRoy felt isolated, overworked, and depressed. The Admiralty’s unwillingness to shoulder the cost of the Adventur e forced him to sell the ship, after which he threatened to resign. The future of the voyage hung in the balance.

Darwin made one more major land expedition, traveling 220 miles from Valparaíso through the Andes to Coquimbo and Copiapó, before rejoining the Beagle to sail to Iquique in Peru. From Lima they sailed west at the end of July 1835 and arrived at the Galápagos archipelago in mid-September.

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They spent five weeks exploring the islands, each with its own distinctive flora and fauna. Darwin, still months from forming even a rudimentary theory on how species might evolve over time, filed new facts away with each species he came across. Although the Galápagos, and their finches and great tortoises are closely connected in the popular imagination with the origins of his ideas about species change, Darwin did not conceive of his famous hypothesis on that visit. ( Turns out Galápagos tortoises migrate—just very slowly. )

Darwin’s observations on this trip led to a different grand, scientific theory. In the Andes, in the Uspallata Pass, he had noticed something curious: fossilized trees that he realized must once have been submerged in the sea. The question in Darwin’s mind was how had they been raised so high up in the mountains.

On January 19, 1835, while Darwin was exploring inland, the Beagle crew had witnessed the eruption of the Osorno Volcano in Chile. A month later, farther up the coast, an earthquake struck and caused a tidal wave. Darwin began to speculate that the events might be connected. FitzRoy reviewed earlier soundings and confirmed the height of the land had changed. Armed with this information, Darwin proposed a theory of continental-scale fall and uplift, with tiny changes working over eons to create dramatic landscapes like those in the Andes.

With this in mind, when they arrived in Tahiti and Darwin saw his first coral reef, he proposed a brilliant new solution to the mystery of how such reefs were formed. His letters describing his ideas were, unbeknownst to him, appearing in scientific journals, and he would return with an already established scientific reputation. But he wasn’t home yet. As they sailed west from the coast of Africa, FitzRoy had found errors in the very first charts they had made, and diverted across the Atlantic to resurvey the coast of Brazil.

The Beagle finally docked at Falmouth on October 2, 1836. Darwin never left Britain again, but he maintained a robust correspondence with his colleagues all over the world about the work done on the voyage. He went on to publish more than 20 articles from his notes and diaries written aboard the Beagle. He published books, became a best-selling travel writer, and a leading scientist.

Evolution of a theory

It is likely that during his trip aboard the Beagle Darwin may have already been beginning to sketch a first outline of his theory of evolution. Immediately after returning to London, he began to work on the theory in earnest, albeit secretly, in his private notebooks. He drafted a first brief treatise that he kept hidden for fear of the scandal it would provoke. As early as 1837 (a year after his return on the Bea- gle ), he drew a “tree of life” to illustrate the evolution—or “transmutation” as he then termed it—of species. It was not until 1859 that Darwin published the final version of his theory, spurred to do so by the publication of similar ideas by the English naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace.

The work of identifying hundreds of specimens was parceled out to others, many of whom became lifelong friends and colleagues. Although not conceived during the voyage, Darwin’s ideas about species change were born not only out of his encounters with so many different plants and animals (including humans), but, most importantly, through the opportunity to see them in all the complexity of their shared habitats. Many years later, Darwin had no hesitation in declaring the voyage of the Beagle the single most important event of his life.

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