Charles Darwin's voyage on the Beagle

Historical Context Note

Litencyc Editors (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.06: English Writing and Culture of the Romantic Period, 1789-1837.
Vol. editors: Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Daniel Robinson (Widener University)

Domains

Evolution

Dates

Date of occurrence 1831-12-27-1836-10-02

Places

United Kingdom (Location)

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

In his

Autobiography

, Charles Darwin later viewed his five-year voyage on the

Beagle

as having 'determined [his] whole career'. During the journey round the world, he gathered observations and specimens that contributed to his eventual formulation of the theory of evolution by natural selection. His position on the ship was not as a commissioned collector or naturalist, but in part as an educated companion to the captain, Robert FitzRoy. In Cape Verde, off West Africa, seashells in the rocks of the cliffs persuaded him of the veracity of Charles Lyell's new book proposing that gradual 'uniformitarian' processes of geological rise and fall took place over vast periods of time. Slight but noticeable variations between species on the different islands of the Galapagos, off South America,…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

179 words

Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Charles Darwin's voyage on the Beagle ". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 August 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=4698, accessed 25 April 2024.]

Save this article