Follow the story of the Beagle voyage through Darwin’s notes, books, letters, and specimens, now in the collections of Cambridge University. The text, captions, and images from the Darwin Bicentenary exhibition A voyage round the world, held in Cambridge University Library in 2009, are available here.

Darwin experienced his first earthquake in 1834, but it was a few months later that he was really confronted with their power. Travelling north along the coast of Chile, Darwin and Robert FitzRoy, captain of HMS Beagle, were confronted with a series of violent natural events that they were perfectly placed to study.

The primary concern that linked much of Darwin’s geological work in the Beagle years was to understand the changing relation between the levels of land and sea. As he studied the shores of South America, and discovered shells inland at thousands of feet above sea level, he became convinced that the continent had been gradually uplifted.  His conviction was strengthened in February 1835, when he was witness to an earthquake that raised the harbour at Concepcion, Chile, several feet out of the Pacific Ocean. He went on to argue that coral atolls were formed when islands in the tropical ocean gradually sank, in the reverse of the process that raised South America.  Find out more about Darwin's geological discoveries here.

The central idea of Darwin's theory of coral reef formation, as it was later formulated, was that the islands were formed by the upward growth of coral as the Pacific Ocean floor gradually subsided. It overturned previous ideas and would in itself have ensured his place as a scientific thinker. Explore the genesis of his theory during the voyage of HMS Beagle.

Darwin's first known letters were written when he was twelve. They continue through school-days at Shrewsbury, two years as a medical student at Edinburgh University, the undergraduate years at Cambridge, and the of the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle. Letters exchanged with family and friends give a vivid picture of the social life of the Shropshire gentry of the 1820s and 1830s. In the earliest letters Darwin was already keenly interested in natural history. During the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle Darwin’s letters convey the excitement and enthusiasm of a keen and careful collector let loose in a new and challenging land. 

This volume contains the complete texts of all the letters that the young naturalist Charles Darwin wrote and received while sailing round the world on the surveying ship the Beaglebetween 1831 and 1836.  They start with letters written as a new and aimless graduate of Cambridge University before the offer of a place on the voyage had reached him, and go on to give  a vivid first-hand account of his exciting and scientifically significant travels to South America, the Galapagos, and Australia. Find links to selected letters here and get a flavour of one of the most famous voyages ever made.

The Beagle was a sort of floating library.  Find out what Darwin and his shipmates read here.