[The year 2009 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of “On The Origin of Species.” The University of Cincinnati is marking these anniversaries with a year-long celebration of Darwin’s life and work. This series on the life of Charles Darwin is part of the celebration.]
On August 29, 1831, Charles Darwin returned from a partridge hunting excursion at the Wedgwood estate to find a large envelope waiting for him. Inside the envelope he found a letter from John Stevens Henslow offering him the position of naturalist aboard the survey ship H.M.S Beagle. Darwin was ecstatic. Only weeks before, he had been forced to scrap a post-baccalaureate voyage to the Canary Islands when his intended traveling companion, Marmaduke Ramsay, died unexpectantly. The Beagle expedition was a God-send, as Darwin was eager to prove his mettle as a naturalist.
After several delays and false starts, the Beagle finally slipped its mooring at Plymouth on December 27 and headed for the Cape Verde Islands. Commanded by Robert FitzRoy, the Beagle was a ten-gun brig outfitted for a detailed survey of the eastern coast of South America. Darwin’s role in the voyage was two-fold: to function as the ship’s “unofficial” naturalist (the official naturalist was ship’s physician Robert McCormick) and to provide a dining companion to the aristocratic FitzRoy.
Darwin became terribly seasick almost immediately upon departure. Dividing his time between his cabin and the rail, Darwin would remain indisposed for the first three weeks of the voyage. Not until first landfall would he begin to feel better. It was a pattern to be repeated again and again: sick and dejected while on board, robust and lively while on land.
For three years the Beagle meticulously charted the coastline of the Pampas and Patagonia. Darwin had little to do on board while the ship was surveying. Usually he would take a small boat to the mainland to explore the terrain, record geological features, collect live and fossil specimens, and “meet the locals.” It was an incredibly productive time for Darwin. He observed predator ants and wasps, discovered a new species of rhea, excavated a Megatherium (an extinct sloth relative), and collected barnacles, bristle-jawed worms, and sea pens. He captured hundreds of beetles (68 species in one day), many of which had never been seen in Europe. He rode the pampas with gauchos, dined with regional governors, and observed the local indigenous peoples. It was a new world for Darwin: one he called “a chaos of delight.”
Darwin’s experience in South America transformed his comfortable Anglican view of nature and the nature of man. Prevalent European ideas, like climate change and catastrophic flood as causes of most extinctions, aboriginal peoples as “noble savages,” and the fixity of biologic varieties, were quickly jettisoned under the weight of careful observation. Darwin was particularly struck by the “wretched life” of the tribes around Tierra del Fuego. Contemporary naturalists (indeed nearly all Europeans) viewed humans as a unique creation with no familial link to simians. Observing the primal existence of the Fuegians, Darwin began to think that perhaps a link existed after all.
Initially Captain FitzRoy had no intention of circumnavigating the globe, much to the chagrin of Darwin, who dreamed of exploring the Pacific. The success of the Patagonian surveys, however, convinced FitzRoy to extend the mission to include the Chilean coast. The voyage of the Beagle, anticipated to take three years, would ultimately drag into five. The benefit to Darwin was to be immense.
[There are several outstanding biographies of Charles Darwin readily available to the public. The definitive biography is a two volume work by E. Janet Browne titled “Charles Darwin: Voyaging” and “Charles Darwin: The Power of Place.” “Darwin: the Life of a Tormented Evolutionist,” by Adrian Desmond and James Moore is also highly regarded. For a shorter biography of Darwin try “The Reluctant Mr. Darwin,” by David Quammen.]