And with no formal shipboard duties or rank, Darwin, after arranging to meet the Beagle at another port, often left the ship to conduct overland excursions. Moreover, conducting marine surveys of distance ports and coasts, the Beagle's purposes were only inadvertently scientific.

Darwin was only twenty-two years old, an unproven, unknown, aspiring geologist when the ship embarked on what stretched into its five-year voyage. Mere happenstance placed Darwin aboard the Beagle-an invitation to sail as a conversation companion on natural-history topics for the ship's depression-prone captain. The voyage's activities associated with South America-particularly its stop in the Galapagos archipelago, off Ecuador's coast-eclipse the fact that the Beagle, sailing in Atlantic, Pacific and Indian ocean waters, also circumnavigated the globe. Though storied, the Beagle's voyage is frequently misunderstood, its mission and geographical breadth unacknowledged. This image of Darwin the Sage, however, crowds out the vital younger man whose curiosities, risk-taking, and travels aboard HMS Beagle would shape his later theories and served as the foundation of his scientific breakthroughs. In popular imagination, he peers at us from behind a bushy white Old Testament beard. The voyage of the Beagle has been by far the most important event in my life and has determined my whole career.-Charles DarwinĬharles Darwin-alongside Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein-ranks among the world's most famous scientists.

Description An illuminating and lively narrative of Charles Darwin's formative years and his adventurous voyage aboard the H.M.S.

Sea of Gray by Tom Chaffin