Charles Darwins Beagle Diary 1831 1836

The Beagle Diary was used to write Darwin's famous book 'Voyage of the Beagle' (1839). The narrative of the surveying voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle between the years 1826 and 1836. Darwin describes each day of the voyage, some in intimate detail, during the Beagle's circumnavigation of the globe.

Opmålingsskibet "Beagle"s togt til Sydamerika og videre jorden rundt

On 27th December 1831, HMS Beagle set out from Plymouth under the command of Captain Robert Fitzroy on a voyage that lasted nearly 5 years. The purpose of the trip was to complete a survey of the southern coasts of South America, and afterwards to circumnavigate the globe. The ship's geologist and naturalist was Charles Darwin. Darwin kept a diary throughout the voyage in which he recorded his daily activities, not only on board the ship but also during the several long journeys that he made on horseback in Patagonia and Chile. His entries tell the story of one of the most important scientific journeys ever made with matchless immediacy and vivid descriptiveness.

With introductions and notes.

"Pleasure of imagination.... I a geologist have illdefined notion of land covered with ocean, former animals, slow force cracking surface &c truly poetical."--from Charles Darwin's Notebook M, 1838 The early nineteenth century was a golden age for the study of geology. New discoveries in the field were greeted with the same enthusiasm reserved today for advances in the biomedical sciences. In her long-awaited account of Charles Darwin's intellectual development, Sandra Herbert focuses on his geological training, research, and thought, asking both how geology influenced Darwin and how Darwin influenced the science. Elegantly written, extensively illustrated, and informed by the author's prodigious research in Darwin's papers and in the nineteenth-century history of earth sciences, Charles Darwin, Geologist provides a fresh perspective on the life and accomplishments of this exemplary thinker. As Herbert reveals, Darwin's great ambition as a young scientist--one he only partially realized--was to create a "simple" geology based on movements of the earth's crust. (Only one part of his scheme has survived in close to the form in which he imagined it: a theory explaining the structure and distribution of coral reefs.) Darwin collected geological specimens and took extensive notes on geology during all of his travels. His grand adventure as a geologist took place during the circumnavigation of the earth by H.M.S. Beagle (1831-1836)--the same voyage that informed his magnum opus, On the Origin of Species. Upon his return to England it was his geological findings that first excited scientific and public opinion. Geologists, including Darwin's former teachers, proved a receptive audience, the British government sponsored publication of his research, and the general public welcomed his discoveries about the earth's crust. Because of ill health, Darwin's years as a geological traveler ended much too soon: his last major geological fieldwork took place in Wales when he was only thirty-three. However, the experience had been transformative: the methods and hypotheses of Victorian-era geology, Herbert suggests, profoundly shaped Darwin's mind and his scientific methods as he worked toward a full-blown understanding of evolution and natural selection.

Easily the most influential book published in the nineteenth century, Darwin’s The Origin of Species is also that most unusual phenomenon, an altogether readable discussion of a scientific subject. On its appearance in 1859 it was immediately recognized by enthusiasts and detractors alike as a work of the greatest importance: its revolutionary theory of evolution by means of natural selection provoked a furious reaction that continues to this day. The Origin of Species is here published together with Darwin’s earlier Voyage of the ‘Beagle.’ This 1839 account of the journeys to South America and the Pacific islands that first put Darwin on the track of his remarkable theories derives an added charm from his vivid description of his travels in exotic places and his eye for the piquant detail.