Our guest speaker for the first talk of 2015 was Dr Patrick Armstrong, Adjunct Professor at Edith Cowan University and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Royal Society of WA. Patrick’s talk entitled “Darwin, Australia and Luck”, providing us with an historical perspective of the naturalist Charles Darwin, was timely being almost on the anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth date.
Charles Darwin (12th February 1809 to 19th April 1882) was a prolific writer; his journals, travelogue diaries, correspondence, scientific notes and books provide an immense collection that enable us to follow what he observed, the development of his ideas and his engagement within the world of his times as well as autobiographical detail.
Patrick’s talk linked a series of incidents in Darwin’s life, some counting as elements of “luck”. Key amongst these was those scientists, family members and friends who had a profound influence on him. The years spent at the two Universities he attended and the association with his mentors all helped to steer Darwin’s course to become the renowned naturalist and geologist.
Charles Darwin’s father, Dr Robert Waring Darwin (1766-1848), was a medical doctor who had a successful country practice in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. He sent his son for medical studies at Edinburgh into what he considered a proper career. This venture failed because the young Darwin neglected his studies and couldn’t deal with the sight of blood. His father’s judgement that “you care for nothing but rat catching and shooting and are a disgrace to the family” exerted pressure for another attempt at a career as a parson and young Charles then studied theology at Christs College Cambridge; it was here that he developed a passion for natural sciences.
The extra-curricular interests became more important in Darwin’s life. In 1831, Charles became one of the geology students of Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873), a key founder of modern geology, and accompanied him on a field trip to north Wales that summer. The two kept up a correspondence for years afterwards.
Another important friend, teacher and mentor from University days was John Stevens Henslow (1796-1881), Professor of Mineralogy and later Botany. Together they undertook field trips in East Anglia focussing primarily on insects and plants but observing the natural environment and local ecology as well. It was Henslow who was first offered the position of a supernumerary and companion to Admiral Fitzroy, the aristocratic and evangelical captain of HMS Beagle. However Henslow proposed Charles Darwin instead.
Encouragement to apply for this supernumerary position also came from Josiah Wedgwood (famous pottery founder and industrialist), who was later to become Darwin’s father-in-law, who proposed a meeting with Fitzroy. From Darwin’s diary the following quote stresses the importance of this opportunity and another stroke of luck — “the voyage of the Beagle has been by far the most important event in my life and has determined my whole career, yet it depended on so small a circumstance as my uncle offering to drive me thirty miles to Shrewsbury which few uncles would have done, and on such a trifle as the shape of my nose“. The comment about the shape of the nose alludes to a successful interview with Fitzroy who happened to be influenced by such trifling human characteristics that at the time were considered to be linked to personality traits.
It was this selection to join HMS Beagle on its hydrographic voyage from 1831 to 1836, that was the most important and pivotal event of Darwin’s career as a naturalist and geologist. The voyage gave him the opportunity to experience firsthand new geographic areas on several continents (the longest periods being within countries of South America, as well as Southern Africa and a fleeting visit to Australia), with all the local geology, ecology, peoples and their cultures providing an enormous amount of information.
Also of great significance were the visits made to several islands. A pertinent quote from his diary prophetically states — “The zoology of archipelagos will prove worthy of examination” for, not only did the various islands have the gamut of climate extremes, but the study of their geology enabled Darwin to build up many of his geological ideas. The processional order of these island landings was another stroke of “luck”, as he viewed local geology from the more straightforward to that requiring complex interpretation. These visits included:
The Cape Verde islands, where the first lesson of observations show these are volcanic seamounts, have little vegetation but good geologic exposure. Then to Saint Paul’s Rocks, between Brazil and West Africa, an isolated group consisting of oceanic mantle rocks, not volcanic, and almost devoid of terrestrial life. Here seabirds abound and there was a rich benthic and littoral marine biota; he noted the seabirds, fishes, invertebrates, the guano and relationships of the fairly straightforward ecology.
The islands of the Falklands provided important lessons. They are situated in a subantarctic and tundra climate and are geologically part of Gondwana. He explored the bleak moorland-type vegetation with their low species diversity and the offshore kelp beds where life was teeming, and developed his concept of a working ecosystem. Off Berkeley Sound he noted the fossiliferous reddish clay sandstones (Silurian age, Fox Bay Formation beds) and deduced that a former warmer, shallow sea environment would have prevailed, recognising that geological change had occurred. He also commented about differences between appearances of the endemic warrah (Dusicyon australis, a mammal species of wolf-like appearance) then on East and West Islands of the Falklands. Regrettably in noting their occurrence and the qualities of their fur, there followed persistent and ongoing slaughter of the species that led to their eventual extinction.
Whilst traversing the Pacific Ocean and having observed coral barrier reefs, coral atolls and their associated shallow horseshoe lagoons, Darwin developed his ideas about their formation and wrote about their development whilst voyaging between Tahiti and New Zealand. As part of this study, he climbed the ship’s mast to better view coral atolls. On the Cocos Islands he confirmed his speculations about sea level changes.
The Galapagos Islands, often considered pivotal in his thinking about species variation between island communities, he found arid, desolate and a “hell on earth” and the iguanas he described as “imps of darkness”. Contrary to what is sometimes considered, the observations made on the visit to the Galapagos were not the purported ground-breaking revelations.
Darwin’s visit of only 36 days to Australia was not recorded as a highpoint of interest. However, his field notes about the geology of the area around Hobart were later published.
There were also several natural events that could have ended his trip on the Beagle but, as luck would have it, he survived; experiencing an earthquake, the threat of the ship being swamped in the seas around Cape Horn when another 2 or 3 degrees would have doomed the Beagle, a near drowning near Tierra de Fuego when a glacier tipped the small boat in which he was travelling, banditry and the charging of bulls in the Falklands. He also survived chagas disease from insect bites whilst in South America as well as ingesting of poisonous fish whilst in the Cocos Islands. Darwin was in fact a poor sailor and endured persistent sea sickness and poor health all his life.
The role of “luck” in Darwin’s life was especially one of successes; the personalities he met coupled with the chance to travel as a self-funded gentleman, in a role that provided him both the time and opportunity to collect, examine and interpret specimens.
Following the voyage, Charles married his cousin Emma Wedgwood (1808-1896) and they settled at Down House, near the village of Downe, in rural Kent where they raised a large family. It was from here that he continued writing many books as well as his ongoing work on observations of nature. On his death, and in spite of his request to be interred locally, Charles Darwin was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Susan Stocklmayer
Note – Down House in Kent, England is preserved as the Darwin’s a family home with a large garden with several greenhouses and is open to the public. It is under the care of English Heritage.