Eventually, the Beagle headed south to the area of Uruguay and Argentina, still on the Atlantic Coast, where extensive mapping of the coastal waters was required.

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When reading the Voyage, it is impossible to miss the observation that much of the time Darwin was engaged in adolescent boy behavior: Pulling the heads off insects, noting how long they would wiggle after cut in half, closely examining the ooze and guts, occupied much of his time. Obviously, careful observation and a strong stomach were not all that was required to think up Natural Selection and his other theories, or the Origin of Species would have been written dozens of times by dozens of grown up kids.

In the following passages, Darwin is still along the Atlantic Coast, in “The Brazils,” in the general vicinity of Rio de Janeiro, ant it early summer 1832. All of these passages illustrate why insects dreaded Darwin:

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What do you eat when you are travelling the world in search of truth about the natural world? Most of the time Darwin ate pretty well…

While traveling through the interior near Rio, Darwin makes note of some of the agricultural practices of the region. He is visiting farms … plantations .. carved out of the forest.

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I became acquainted with an Englishman who was going to visit his estate … more than a hundred miles [north] of Cape Frio. As I was quite unused to travelling, I gladly accepted his kind offer of allowing me to accompany him.

And so was the case with a number of Darwin’s excursions into the bush.

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The first time I read the following passage from The Voyage, I was reminded of my own first experience in a rain forest (in Zaire). Evident in this passage is at least a glimmering of Darwin’s appreciation for the complexity of ecosystems. Darwin could be considered the first scientific ecologist. Enough of my commentary … this passage very much stands on it’s own …

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Behold this humble passage by Darwin, which is what immediately follows his discussion of the octopus. This passage is a touchstone to several important aspects of what Darwin was doing and thinking, and is a poignant link to what Darwin did not know:

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Of his time on the Beagle (1832 – 1836), Darwin wrote, “The voyage of the Beagle has been by far the most important event in my life and has determined my whole career.” Of the manuscript describing that voyage, he wrote, “The success of this my first literary child always tickles my vanity more than that of any of my other books.”

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… by not having a blog that gets lots of spam.

Continue reading You People Don’t Know What You Are Missing … →

In 1833, Darwin spent a fair amount of time on the East Coast of South America, including in the Pampas, where he had access to abundant fossil material. Here I’d like to examine his writings about some of the megafauna, including Toxodon, Mastodon, and horses, and his further considerations of biogeography and evolution.

In the vicinity of Rio Tercero…

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