Charles Darwin

Research for his evolutionary theory

Studied medicine at the University for 2 years 1825-7 before quitting & lived at 11 Lothian St (in old city)

1835 July 19; H.M.S. Beagle arrived at Lima, Peru. Darwin looked around the city and was shocked at the state of decay all around him. The next few weeks were spent taking on provisions for the trip across the Pacific ocean

1832 February 28; The ship arrived at Salvador, Brazil, in All Saints Bay. Darwin explored the tropical rain forests on long walks by himself, taking in the rich glorious spender of nature. In town Darwin was disgusted at the sight of black slavery.

"The channel by which we went to and returned from Olinda was bordered on each side by mangroves", visited from Aug 12 1836

November 17th."We crossed the Rozario, which was deep and rapid, and passing the village of Colla, arrived at mid-day at Colonia del Sacramiento."

Visited it briefly on his journey home in 1836 (Lonely Planet)

Visited it during his voyage Jan 1832
See media.isnet.org

"In 1877 Charles Darwin dabbled in archaeology at the stones, experimenting with the rate at which remains sink into the earth for his book The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms."

Westminster Abbey - buried

The fossil record at Joggins figures in Darwin's On the Origin of Species

July 23rd. ..The Beagle anchored late at night in the bay of Valparaiso, the chief seaport of Chile (1834)

17 Jan 1836 - On a visit to the Blue Mountains from Sydney "At lunchtime they had reached Wentworth Falls and, leaving the horses at the Weatherboard inn, walked southward two kilometres along Jamison Creek". Darwin wrote "An immense gulf is suddenly & without any preparation seen through the trees ... The class of view was to me quite novel & extremely magnificent." The track to the falls is now named "Darwin's Walk". Darwin ruminated on the geology but "the Blue Mountains deceived him, and he incorrectly arrived at the conclusion that they their vast ravines and valleys were due to an ancient inland sea carving them out. He thought that effects from rainfall would be negligible as it would have taken too long to create these spectacular effects. Darwin's most dangerous flaw with respect to his hypotheses concerning Australia, was that he was still badly underestimating the age of the continent."

Spent quite a while exploring Chilo?, and mentioned Castro church in his travel notes

Darwin stayed June 2-18 1836. Made a 4 day trip east into the interior and crossed the inscribed area of the Boland mountain complex around Franschoek. Comments in his "Beagle Diaries" about Table mountain "... this great mass of horizontally stratified sandstone rises quite close behind the town to a height of 3500 feet; its the upper part forms an absolute wall, which often reaching into the region of the clouds. I should think so high a mountain not forming part of a platform & yet being composed of horizontal strata, must be a rare phenomenon." In his (separate) field notebook he commented on the slate formations on Lions Hill and Lions Rump (both in Cape Peninsular NP) where he climbed to collect specimens :- "He also traced the transition from slate into gneiss at the Lions Rump and decided that the foliation of the gneiss was of metamorphic origin and did not necessarily indicate the original sedimentary layering."

20 Feb 1832, the Beagle calls in at Fernando de Noronha on way to Salvador.

Charles Darwin described it as "the most remarkable reef in the West Indies" in 1842

Signed a petition to save the Aldabra tortoises (1874)

The Darwin Glacier was named by the geologist John Walter Gregory - the first person to reach the icefields of Mt Kenya in 1892/3.In his book "The Great Rift Valley" he describes that this "was so named as we owe to Darwin the first precise description of a glacial valley in England"