 HMS Beagle, from an 1841 watercolour by Owen Stanley The Voyage of the Beagle refers to the survey expedition of the ship HMS Beagle under captain Robert FitzRoy which set out on 27 December 1831. and is the title commonly given to Charles Darwin's Journal and Remarks published in 1839 as a book which brought him considerable fame and respect.
While the expedition was originally planned to last 2 years, it stretched to almost 5 years with the Beagle returning on 2 October, 1836.
Darwin spent most of the voyage exploring on land, 3 years 3 months on land as against 18 months at sea. His book, also known as his Journal of Researches is a vivid and exciting travel memoir as well as a detailed scientific field journal covering biology, geology and anthropology that demonstrates Darwin's keen powers of observation, written at a time when Westerners were still discovering much of the rest of the world. While Darwin made repeat visits to some areas during the survey, for clarity the book's chapters are set out to relate to places rather than running chronologically.
With hindsight, hints can be found of ideas that Darwin would later develop into the theory of evolution.
Aims of the expedition
The main purpose of the expedition was a hydrographic survey of the coasts of the southern part of South America as a continuation of the work of previous surveys, producing charts for naval war or commerce and drawings of the hills as seen from the sea, with height measurements. In particular, the longitude of Rio de Janiero which formed a setting out point for these surveys was in doubt due to discrepancies in measurements and an exact longitude was to be found, using calibrated chronometers and checking these through repeated astronomical observations. Continuing records of tides and meteorological conditions were also required.
A lesser priority was given to surveying approaches to harbours on the Falkland Islands and, season permitting, the Galápagos Islands. Then the Beagle was to proceed to Tahiti and on to Port Jackson, Australia which were known points to verify the chronometers. An additional requirement was for a geological survey of a circular coral atoll in the Pacific ocean including investigation of its profile and of tidal flows.
Context and preparations
The previous survey expedition to South America involved HMS Adventure and HMS Beagle under the overall command of captain Phillip Parker King. During the survey Beagle's captain, Pringle Stokes, committed suicide and his command was taken by the young aristocrat Robert FitzRoy. After their return on October 14 1830 captain King retired, and on June 25 1831 the 26 year old FitzRoy was appointed commander of a second expedition captaining the Beagle.
He promptly spared no expense in having the Beagle extensively refitted, with the deck raised and the latest and best equipment added. He engaged a mathematical instrument maker to maintain the 22 chronometers kept in his cabin, as well as the artist/draughtsman Augustus Earle. During the previous voyage 3 Fuegians had been brought to England and they were to be returned to Tierra del Fuego together with the missionary Richard Matthews.
FitzRoy was conscious of the stress and loneliness of command at this period, when his rank would bar him from dining with his subordinates, and only too aware of the suicides of captain Stokes and of his own uncle Viscount Castlereagh. It was not unusual for naturalists to be invited on such expeditions as passengers paying their own expenses, and FitzRoy suggested to his superior, Captain Francis Beaufort, that such a well-educated and scientific gentleman be sought. Beaufort's enquiries via his friend George Peacock at the University of Cambridge were turned down by the Revd. Jenyns, vicar of Swaffham Bulbeck, and professor Henslow who had other commitments. Both recommended the 22 year old Charles Darwin who had just completed his theology course and was then on a geology field trip. On returning home, Darwin received letters from Henslow saying "I assure you I think you are the very man they are in search of" for the position "more as a companion than a mere collector", and from Peacock who said the post was at his "absolute disposal". At first Darwin's father rejected the proposal, but was persuaded by his brother in law Josiah Wedgwood II to relent and fund his son's expedition. Then FitzRoy wrote apologising that he had already promised the place to a friend, but when Darwin arrived for interview FitzRoy told him that the friend had just refused the offer, not five minutes before. The Tory FizRoy was cautious at the prospect of companionship with this unknown young gentleman of Whig background and they spent a week together getting to know each other. Using Physiognomy, FitzRoy nearly rejected Darwin as the shape of Darwin's nose indicated a lack of determination, but they found each other agreeable. Beaufort advised that Darwin's share of costs would be up to £500, he would be free to withdraw at any suitable stage and would have control over which "public body" his own collections went to.
Darwin was then involved in arranging his own equipment and means for preserving specimens, seeking advice from his old mentor Robert Edmund Grant amongst others.
Before they left England FitzRoy gave Darwin a copy of the first volume of Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology.
The voyage
The Beagle was not ready to sail until early November, then was repeatedly delayed by gales, eventually setting out on December 27 1831. It touched at Madeira for a confirmed position without stopping, then went on to Tenerife but there was quarantined because of cholera in England and denied landing.
They continued on to make their first stop at the volcanic island of St. Jago in the Cape de Verd Islands, and it is here that Darwin's Journal starts. While readings were taken to accurately confirm the longitude, he went on shore being fascinated by his first sight of tropical vegetation and the geology with a high white band of seashells supporting Lyell's thesis of gradual rising and falling of the earth's crust.
After touching at more islands they arrived at Bahia (San Salvador), Brazil on February 29 where Darwin was enraptured by the tropical forest. He found the sight of slavery offensive and made the mistake of responding when FitzRoy remarked on it being justifiable, with the result that FitzRoy lost his temper and banned Darwin from his company. The officers had nicknamed their captain "hot coffee" for such outbursts, and within hours FitzRoy apologised and asked Darwin to remain.
The ship made its way down the coast to Rio de Janiero. Customarily the ship's surgeon took the position of naturalist and the Beagle's surgeon quite reasonably felt he was being supplanted, as the gentleman Darwin received all the invitations from dignitaries onshore. He was sufficiently disgruntled to leave the ship here. Darwin now assumed the quasi-official duties of naturalist, getting nicknamed Philos, though his collections were his own and were shipped back to Henslow in Cambridge to await his return. Several others on board including the new acting-surgeon and FitzRoy made sizeable collections for the Crown, which the Admiralty placed in the British Museum.
Surveying South America
As the Beagle carried out its survey work, going to and fro along the coast, Darwin spent much of the time away from the ship. At intervals the Beagle returned to ports where mail could be received and Darwin's notes, journals and collections were sent back to England.
Darwin made long journeys inland, with travelling companions from the locality. In Patagonia he rode inland with gauchos and saw them use bolas to bring down "ostriches" (rheas), and ate roast armadillo.
On the beach at Punta Alta in September 1832 he found fossilised bones of extinct giant mammals, the first of which he thought might be of a rhinoceros, but which turned out to be a Megatherium, a giant ground sloth.
At Montevideo in November the mail from home included a copy of the second volume of Lyell's Principles of Geology, which set out a variation of Creationism relating to the idea of gradual change, with species being formed at "centres of creation" then going extinct as the environment changed to their disadvantage.
They reached Tierra del Fuego in December 1832 and Darwin was taken aback at the crude savagery of the natives, in stark contrast to the civilised behaviour of the three Fuegians they were returning as missionaries. They set up a mission post, with huts, gardens, furniture and crockery, but when they returned nine days later the possessions had been looted and divided up equally by the natives. Matthews gave up, rejoining the ship and leaving the three Fuegians to continue the missionary work. The Beagle went on to the Falkland Islands where Darwin studied the relationships of species to habitats and found ancient fossils like those he'd found in Wales. Fitzroy bought a schooner to assist with the surveying, and they returned to Patagonia where this was fitted with a new copper bottom and renamed HMS Adventure. Darwin was assisted by the young sailor Symes Covington in preserving specimens and his collecting was so successful that with FitzRoy's agreement he took on Covington as a full time servant for £30 a year.
The two ships sailed to the Rio Negro where Darwin left the Beagle for another journey inland with the gauchos, on 13 August 1833 meeting General Juan Manuel de Rosas who was then engaged in a war of extermination against native "Indians", and obtaining a passport from him. As they crossed the pampas the gauchos told Darwin of a rare smaller species of Rhea. At Bahia Blanca, waiting for the Beagle, he revisited Punta Alta and found bones of another megatherium, this time undisturbed in situ in a context of layers of sediments including modern shells that indicated that the climate had not changed much since their extinction and showed no signs of a sudden catastrophic flood. More expeditions inland almost ended disastrously when Darwin fell ill then became entangled in a revolution as rebels allied to Rosas blockaded Buenos Ayres, but the passport helped and with Covington he managed to escape in a boatload of refugees. At the Beagle, the artist Augustus Earle left due to health problems and was replaced by Conrad Martens, and they sailed south, on 23 December putting in at Port Desire where Martens shot a rhea which they enjoyed eating before Darwin realised that this was the smaller species, and preserved the remains. In January 1834 they reached the Straits of Magellan and at St. Gregory's Bay met half-civilised Patagonian "giants" over 6 ft (1.8 m) tall who impressed Darwin as being "excellent practical naturalists" and who explained to him that the smaller rheas were the only species this far south, while the larger rheas kept to the north, the species meeting around the Rio Negro.
After further surveying in Tierra del Fuego they returned to visit the missionaries, but found the huts deserted. Then canoes approached and they found that one of the savage natives was Jeremy, who had lost his possessions but had settled into the native ways, taking a wife. While Darwin had never seen "so complete & grievous a change", Jeremy came on board and dined using his cutlery properly, speaking English as well as ever, then assured them that he "had not the least wish to return to England" and was "happy and contented", leaving them gifts of otter skins and arrowheads before returning to the canoe to join his squaw. Of the first visit Darwin wrote that "Viewing such men, one can hardly make oneself believe that they are fellow-creatures, and inhabitants of the same world. It is a common subject of conjecture what pleasure in life some of the less gifted animals can enjoy: how much more reasonably the same question may be asked of these barbarians.", yet one of these savages had readily adapted to civilisation and then chosen to return to his primitive ways. This did not sit comfortably with the Cambridge don's view of mankind as the highest creation, immeasurably superior to the animals.
They returned to the Falkland Islands on 10 March 1834 just after an uprising of gauchos and indians had butchered British nationals, and helped to put the revolt down. Darwin received word from Henslow that his specimens had reached Cambridge, with the Megatherium fossils being fabulously prized and displayed before the cream of British science, making Darwin's reputation. The Beagle now headed for southern Patagonia, and on 19 April an expedition set off including FitzRoy and Darwin to take boats as far as possible up the Santa Cruz river, with all involved taking turn in teams dragging the boats upstream. The river cut through a series of rises and wide plateaux forming wide plains covered with shells and shingle, and Darwin discussed with FitzRoy his interpretation that these terraces had been shores that had gradually raised in accordance with Lyell's theories. They approached the Andes but had to turn back.
West coast of South America
The Beagle now sailed round through the Straits of Magellan to the west coast and up north reaching Valparaiso on 23 July 1834. Darwin bought horses and set off up the volcanic Andes, then on his way down fell ill and spent a month in bed. he learnt that the Admiralty had reprimanded FitzRoy for buying the Adventure and he had taken it badly, selling the ship and announcing they would go back to recheck his survey, then had resigned his command doubting his sanity, but was persuaded by his officers to withdraw his resignation and proceed. On 21 November the Beagle arrived at the Chonos Islands from which they saw the eruption of volcanoes in the Andes, then after completing its survey turned north. At the port of Valdiva on 20 February [[1835] Darwin was on shore when there was a brief earthquake, and he returned to find the port town badly damaged. Two hundred miles (320 km) north at Concepcion they found the city devastated by repeated shocks and a tidal wave, with even the cathedral in ruins. Turning away from the horrors of death and destruction, Darwin noticed that mussel beds now lay above high tide with the shellfish dead: this was clear evidence of the ground rising, and he had actually experienced the gradual process of the continent emerging from the ocean as Lyell had indicated.
Back in Valparaiso, Darwin set out on another trek up the Andes and on 21 March reached the continental divide at 13,000 ft (4,000 m): even here he found fossil seashells in the rocks. After going on to Mendoza they were returning by a different pass when they found a petrified forest of fossilised trees, crystallised in a sandstone escarpment showing him that they had been on an Atlantic beach when the land sank, burying them in sand which had been compressed into rock, then had gradually been raised with the continent to stand at 7,000 ft (2,100 m) in the mountains. On returning to Valparaiso with half a mule's load of specimens he wrote to his father that his findings, if accepted, would be crucial to the theory of the formation of the world. After another gruelling expedition in the Andes while the Beagle was refitted he rejoined it and sailed to Lima, but found an armed insurrection in progress and had to stay with the ship. Here he was writing up his notes when he realised that Lyell's idea that coral atolls were on the rims of rising extinct volcanoes made less sense than the volcanoes gradually sinking so that the coral reefs around the island kept building themselves close to sea level and became an atoll as the volcano disappeared below. This was a theory he would examine when they reached the Pacific islands.
Galapagos Islands
A week out of Lima, they reached the Galápagos Islands on 15 September 1835. On Chatham Island Darwin found broken black rocky volcanic lava scorching under the hot sun with volcanic craters which reminded him of the iron foundries of industrial Staffordshire. He noted widespread thin scrub thickets of only ten species, and very few insects. The impressive giant tortoises to his fancy appeared antediluvian, though apparently he thought at the time that these had been brought to the islands by buccaneers as food. Although he was told that they differed from island to island, this was not obvious on the islands he visited and he did not bother with collecting their shells. The marine iguanas seemed hideously ugly, and due to mislabelling in the museum he thought these unique creatures were a South American species. The birds were remarkably unafraid of humans, and of unique kinds with some resemblance to South American species. At the time he did not appreciate that species were unique to islands and did not identify which island his specimens had been taken on, but fortunately others were being more methodical in labelling their collections.
Publication of Darwin's book
On the Beagle's return on 2 October 1836, Darwin had been invited by FitzRoy to contribute the natural history section to the captain's account of the Beagle's voyage, and using his field notes and the journal which he had been sending home for his family to read, completed this section by September 1837. As well as writing his own account of the voyage and the previous expedition of two ships, FitzRoy had to edit the notes of the previous captain of the Beagle. The account was completed and published in May 1839 as the Narrative of the surveying voyages of H.M.S. Adventure and Beagle in four volumes with Darwin's Journal and Remarks, 1832—1836 as the third volume, the fourth volume being a lengthy appendix. Darwin's contribution proved remarkably popular and the publisher, Henry Colburn, took it upon himself to reissue the same text in August with a new title page as Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the various countries visited by H.M.S. Beagle apparently without seeking Darwin's permission or paying him a fee. The book went through many editions, the best known being the second edition of 1845, and was published with several different titles.
Contents - where Darwin went.
The book's list of contents outlines where Charles Darwin went (not in exact chronological sequence):
- St. Jago -- Cape de Verd Islands
- Rio de Janeiro
- Maldonado
- Rio Negro to Bahia Blanca
- Bahia Blanca
- Bahia Blanca to Buenos Ayres
- Buenos Ayres and St. Fe
- Banda Oriental and Patagonia
- Santa Cruz, Patagonia, and The Falkland Islands
- Tierra del Fuego
- Strait of Magellan. -- Climate of the Southern Coasts
- Central Chile
- Chiloe and Chonos Islands
- Chiloe and Concepcion: Great Earthquake
- Passage of the Cordillera
- Northern Chile and Peru
- Galapagos Archipelago
- Tahiti and New Zealand
- Australia
- Keeling Island: -- Coral Formations
- Mauritius to England
Sources
- Darwin, Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Michael Joseph, the Penguin Group, London 1991 ISBN 0-7181-3430-3
- Voyage of the Beagle, Charles Darwin (including Robert FitzRoy's 'Remarks with reference to the Deluge'), Penguin Books, London 1989 ISBN 0-14-043268-X
External links
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