Charles Darwin: The Concise Story of an Extraordinary Man

3. Exploration

[ 13 ] tHree v฀ Exploration Darwin reaLizeD tHat tHe offer to join HMS Beagle on a surveying trip circumnavigating the globe was the chance of a lifetime. The ship was a 10-gun brig, 242 tons and only 90 feet long. This class of ships carried the naval nickname of “coffin” because of their tendency to sink in rough seas. The captain, Robert FitzRoy, wanted a gentleman-naturalist who would be a suitable traveling companion, and Henslow recommended Darwin as the best-qualified person for such an undertaking. Charles’s father objected and produced a list of reasons why this “wild scheme” would not be a good idea. However, he did add that, if anyone of common sense whose opinion he valued thought it was a good idea, he would relent. As usual, Charles deferred to his father’s wishes and rode off to Maer, twenty miles away, to hunt with Uncle Jos. When Charles explained the opportunity to his uncle, Jos quickly produced counter-arguments to Dr. Darwin’s list of objections. He then rode back to the Mount and persuaded Dr. Darwin that this would be the perfect situation to help Charles settle down. At their first meeting, FitzRoy almost rejected Darwin because of the shape of his nose. FitzRoy was a phrenologist who thought that Darwin’s nose made him too weak for the exertions of a long sea voyage, but Darwin convinced him that “my nose had spoken falsely.” Charles was about [ 14 ] six feet tall, a lean, sinewy, powerful, and inexhaustible young man. For the next four months Captain FitzRoy refitted the ship, and Darwin packed and repacked the tiny poop cabin with books, microscope, specimen jars, etc. The Beagle had already made its first surveying voyage to South America (1826–30) and had returned with FitzRoy in command after the captain committed suicide in 1828. Charles was twenty-two and FitzRoy was twenty-six years old when the second voyage sailed off to make history. The Beagle’s mission was to complete the survey of the South American coast begun by the first voyage, take accurate longitude readings with the twenty-four chronometers aboard, and make geophysical measurements. HMS Beagle drawing by American artist Samuel L. Margolies (1897– 1974). The Beagle was a sloop rigged as a brig. On her second voyage, she carried two 9-pound guns and four carronades. Special fittings included a raised upper deck. (From Dibner [1960], in the Burndy Collection at the Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif. Used with permission of the Huntington Library.) [ 15 ] HMS Beagle, main deck and side elevation. Darwin shared the poop cabin (no. 2 on label) with draughtsman John Lort Stokes and midshipman Philip Gidley King, who made the drawing. (National Maritime Museum) The Beagle sailed on 27 December 1831, after being forced back to port twice by storms. Darwin suffered terribly from seasickness for the next five years, often eating only raisins and dry biscuits and resting for hours in his cabin. Eventually he began to spend longer periods on shore when the Beagle docked at various ports. In South America, he would rent or borrow horses and ride inland, arranging to meet the Beagle at a certain time and place. A practiced hunter, Darwin often brought back fresh game for the ship’s galley. On one inland trip lasting four months, he rode with gauchos, camped with Spanish bandits, landed in the middle of revolutions, and had to cope with soldiers, Indians, and whizzing bullets. The extraordinary experiences in the rainforests of Brazil, the arid pampas of Argentina, along the coast of Chile, and high in the Andes shaped the rest of his life and the history of science. Darwin was filled with delight at the thought that he might [ 16 ] The microscope and pistols that Darwin had with him on the voyage of the Beagle. (Down House) The tropics and its stunning biodiversity had a great impact on Darwin. A bird-hunter’s view of a Brazilian forest. J. B. von Spix and C. F. P. von Martius, Atlas zur Reise Brasilien in den Jahren 1817 bis 1829 gemacht (1823–31). (Cambridge University Library) write a book on the geology of the places he visited. He was inspired by Humboldt’s descriptions and greatly stimulated by another book he had with him, Charles Lyell’s The Principles of Geology. Lyell rejected the catastrophist interpretation of the formation of the earth...