263

BOOK REVIEW

RICHARD DARWIN KEYNES, editor: The Beagle Record: Selections From the Original Pictorial Records and Written Accounts of the Voyage of H. M.S. Beagle. New York, Cambridge University Press, 1979. xiv + 409 pp. $75.00.

ENCharles Darwin was beginning his Beagle journey, his friend Vv and relation, William Darwin Fox, warned him: "I have regretted one trait of your character which will I fear prevent you making as great advantage as you might do from your present travels.... I allude to your great dislike of writing and keeping a daily methodical account of passing events."1I Fox's admonition was heeded. During the almost five years of his travels, Darwin reversed his "dislike of writing" into a compulsion to write a daily narrative Diary, detailed scientific notes, and frequent long letters to his relations and friends in . This written record was the beginning of his scientific career. After he returned home he drew on it to produce his first book,2 which, when published, caused him to feel as if he had become "an angel"3 -and he then went on, eventually, to write The Origin ofSpecies and The Descent of Man. Because the voyage of the Beagle was undertaken not to take Darwin around the world but to survey and to chart the coasts of South America for the British Admiralty, Beagle Captain Robert FitzRoy produced his own careful record: charts of the topography of the places visited, scien- tific letters to Sir Francis Beaufort-Britain's greatest hydrographer, who headed the Hydrographic Department of the Admiralty-and then a Diary, which aided him in his own account of the Beagle voyage. To produce a pictorial record of what was seen, FitzRoy engaged the services of two artists: first, for a brief period, , and then, for most of the voyage, Conrad Martens. Martens' Beagle sketches and watercolors, previously for the most part unknown and scattered in private collections, have now been by a labor of love fully listed and the more striking pictures reproduced by Richard Darwin Keynes in his new book.5 The reproductions also include pictures by Earle, FitzRoy, and members of the Beagle crew. Martens' pictures depict exciting scenes of strange and far-off places, animals, and people: Address for reprint requests: 993 Park Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10028

Vol. 56, No. 2, March 1980 R. COLP, JR. 264 R. COLP, JR. bleak Patagonian coast lines, lofty snow-capped Mount Sarmiento, the desolate Falkland Islands, the rain forest of Chile packed with dead and living trees, the earthquake-shattered Cathedral at Concepcion, condors preying on a dead guanaco, savage naked Fuegians, and a veiled Peruvian lady. These scenes help us visualise what Darwin saw and what stirred him. (Martens, however, sees the Fuegians as mild, inoffensive, and somewhat quaint, but to Darwin they were shocking and repulsive, and 40 years later in The Descent of Man he remembered them as "wild, startled, and distrustful" and "frothed with excitement."6) Of all that he saw, Darwin was most intensely stirred by the great tropical forest of Brazil. This forest, not shown by Martens, was shown in prints by Maurice Rugendas, a German artist. From Brazil in 1832 Darwin described Rugendas' pictures to his sister Caroline as "most true & clever,'7 and he later made a note about Rugendas' Foret du Bresil in his "Receipts" and "Memoranda" Book. In 1834 FitzRoy wrote to Captain Beaufort from Valparaiso, Chile: "Mr. Martens (the Artist) is at work on shore, living with an exceedingly able man of the same profes- sion, a German by name 'Rugendas.' Pray when you have five minutes to bestow upon beautiful prints ask at a shop for 'Voyage pittoresque en Bresil'.... They are the most faithful, the very best delineations of Tropi- cal scenery and human beings that I have seen or can imagine it possible to produce. "8 One would like to know more about Rugendas, and see reproductions of his remarkable pictures. Why did FitzRoy select Darwin to accompany him on his voyage? Keynes, in the Introduction to his book, correctly questions the opinion that FitzRoy intended Darwin to help him provide geological evidence "that would establish once and for all the literal truth of the story of the Creation contained in the Bible"; and he points out that during the voyage Darwin-"the former theological student"-believed more in the truth of Genesis than did FitzRoy.9 Keynes, however, omits to mention the work of Jacob Gruber, who showed that the official Beagle naturalist was the surgeon Robert MacCormick, and the work of Harold Burstyn who sug- gested that " sailed on the Beagle to provide her captain with companionship, principally at mealtime. '10 Naval voyages during the 1830s entailed long stretches of isolation from friends and family; and by British naval tradition a captain must have virtually no social contact with anyone in his official command. So FitzRoy, who correctly feared his own tendency to depression, took Darwin along as a "supernumerary")

Bull. N.Y. Acad. Med. BOOK REVIEW 265 passenger to serve as his companion. Keynes also omits to mention the one joint Beagle publication by FitzRoy and Darwin; an article about the good work of English missionaries in the Pacific, written at sea in June 1836, and then soon published. I I In addition to pictures, Keynes' book presents a chronology of the writings of the Beagle crew, including an extract from the diary of Syms Covington, who was Darwin's servant,12 and a letter from Martens de- scribing an expedition that he, Darwin, and others made in 1834, from Port Desire in Patagonia. "While here," Martens wrote, "as there was but little to be done in the way of sketching, I used generally to take my gun and was fortunate enough one day to bring home an ostrich, the only one indeed which as yet we had been able to kill, altho great numbers had been seen. It was a young one, and excellent eating. "13 Years later Darwin would remember this eaten ostrich; it would then form evidence for his theory of evolution, and be named Rhea Darwinii. Most of the writings Keynes selects are by Darwin and FitzRoy and include: Darwin's letters to his family and to his mentor, Professor Henslow, selections from his Diary and his first book on the Beagle voyage (all previously published but mostly out of print14), and FitzRoy's letters to Darwin and Beaufort and selections from his Beagle Narrative. The letters have mostly not been previously published and the Narrative has long been out of print. Darwin's writings reveal his sharp observation and passionate feelings for diverse phenomena of the world-sea and sky, animals and plants, men and women-and, above all, he communicates his sense of wonder and of seeing everything freshly and for the first time. What he wrote can be read and reread with delight by young and old. FitzRoy's writings show his wide interest in geology, natural history, foreign peoples, topography, and the weather and his deep concerns about handling his ship at sea and his crew. He was a superb sailor and commander, and in 1834 Darwin perceptively commented: "The Captain keeps all smooth by rowing everyone in turn, which of course he has as much right to do, as a gamekeeper to shoot Partridges on the first of September. "15 FitzRoy aided Darwin on the letter's land trips, sending help and transportation when needed; sometimes delaying sailing of the Beagle and writing Darwin "take your own time"; and showing a deep concern for the safety of his companion, "Prithee be careful; while there's care there's no fear. "16 Each showed affection for the other. FitzRoy sometimes became irritable and depressed, but Darwin remained steadily

Vol. 56, No. 2, March 1980 266 R. COLP, JR. even-tempered. At the beginning of the voyage, FitzRoy wrote Beaufort: "Mr. Darwin is a very superior young man.... He has a mixture of necessary qualities which make himn feel at home, and happy, and makes everyone his friend."''7 After the voyage, Arthur Mellersh, who had been mate on the Beagle, recollected that Darwin: "was the only man I ever knew against whom I never heard a word said; and as people when shut up in a ship for five years are apt to get cross with each other, that is saying a good deal."'8 Darwin's intellectual development is revealed in greatest detail in his scientific notes: 1,383 pages of geological notes and 368 pages of zoologi- cal notes.'9 The first notes reveal his slow, sometimes vacillating, growth of allegiance to Charles Lyell's uniformitarian geological theory. His zoological notes reveal that he had no definite evolutionary thoughts, but that he thought about the difficulties of including new species within the existing systems of classification; that he was impressed by the inter- relatedness of living things; and that he was constantly surprised and delighted at finding new species in new geographic places. His scientific notes when he was visiting the Galapagos Islands reveal that his main concern was geological-to understand how volcanic action had formed the Islands-and that only slowly, and as an aside, did he come to observe that different zoological species inhabited different islands. After he re- turned home, this Galapagos observation became the main stimulus for his first evolutionary thoughts. Unfortunately, Keynes, in his book, prints none of Darwin's scientific notes, and only refers to these notes in passing. For his account of Darwin's experience on the Galapagos, aptly described as a "crowning experience,"20 Keynes mainly relies on Darwin's first Beagle book, writ- ten soon after its author had returned home and become influenced by retrospective evolutionary concepts. Keynes quotes from Darwin's Or- nithological Notes, where Darwin states that the varieties found on the different Galapagos Islands would "be well worth examining; for such facts would undermine the stability of species. "21 This passage is said to have been written in September-October 1835, soon after the Galapagos experience. Although this is the date given by Nora Barlow, who pub- lished the definitive account of the Notes,22 some have thought that the passage was written in 1838, soon after Darwin's return home, but the dating is uncertain and may never be definitely known.23 Keynes omits any mention of David Stanbury's book,24 published two

Bull. N.Y. Acad. Med. BOOK REVIEW 267 years before his book. Stanbury has an Introduction giving a superb summary of the Beagle voyage, and selections from the writings of FitzRoy, Darwin, and others, which are sometimes similar and sometimes different from the selections in Keynes' book. Despite his omissions, Keynes has produced a work of text and illustrations that those who are interested in Darwin, 19th century travel, and the history of science will want to possess and refer to.

RALPH COLP, JR., M.D.

NOTES AND REFERENCES 1. William Darwin Fox to Charles Darwin, 8. Ibid., p. 231. Darwin's "Receipts" June 30, 1832. Darwin Papers. Robin and "Memoranda" Book notation on Darwin Deposit, Cambridge University Rugendas is published in Colp, R., Jr.: Library. To Be an Invalid: The Illness ofCharles 2. Darwin, C. R.: Journal ofResearches Darwin. Chicago, University of Chi- into the Geology and Natural History of cago Press, 1977, p. 161. the Various Countries visitedby H. M.S. 9. Ibid., pp. 6-7. Beagle, Under the Command ofCaptain 10. Gruber, J. W., Who was the Beagle's FitzRoy, R. N. From 1832 to 1836. naturalist? Brit. J. Hist. Sci. 4:266-82; , Colburn, 1839. This is volume Burstyn, H. L.: If Darwin wasn't the 3 of the official Beagle Narrative His- Beagle's naturalist, why was he on tory. board?Brit. J. Hist. Sci. 8:62-69, 1975. 3. Barlow, N., editor: Darwin and Hens- A summary of these articles is given by low: The Growth ofan Idea. London, Stephen Jay Gould in his book Ever Murray, 1967, p. 141. Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural 4. FitzRoy, R.: Narrative ofthe Surveying History. New York, Norton, 1977, pp. Voyages ofHis Majesty's Ships Adven- 28-33. ture and Beagle, between the Years 1826 11. FitzRoy, R. and Darwin, C.: A letter, and 1836, Describing their Examination containing remarks on the moral state of ofthe Southern Shores ofSouth America, , , &c. South African and the Beagle's Circumnavigation of Christian Recorder, 2:221-38, 1836. the Globe. Part II. Proceedings ofthe This article has been reprinted in Barrett, Second Expedition, 1831-1836, under P. H., editor: The Collected Papers of the command of Captain Robert Fitz- Charles Darwin. Chicago, University of Roy, R. N. This is volume 2 of the offi- Chicago Press, 1977, vol. 1, pp. 19-38. cial Beagle narrative history. 12. The Beagle Record, p. 359. 5. Keynes, R., editor: The Beagle Record: 13. Ibid., pp. 175-78. This is a transcript ofa Selections From the Original Pictorial copy of a letter of Martens to his brother Records and Written Accounts of the Henry, which is published for the first Voyage ofH. M.S. Beagle. New York, time. Cambridge University Press, 1979. 14. Darwin's Diary, first published in 1933 Hereafter cited as The Beagle Record. (Barlow, N., editor: Charles Darwin's 6. Darwin, C. R.: The Descent of Man, Diary of the Voyage ofH. M.S. "Bea- and Selection in Relation to Sex. New gle". Cambridge, Cambridge Univer- York, Appleton, 1890, pp. 633-34. sity Press, 1933), the Krause Reprint 7. The Beagle Record, p. 53. Company.

Vol. 56, No. 2, March 1980 268 R. COLP, JR.

15. The Beagle Record, pp. 220-21. ical notes. Bull. Brit. Museum (Nat. 16. Ibid., p. 160. Hist.), Hist. Series 2:201-78, 1963. 17. Ibid.,p. 77. 23. The dating ofthe Ornithological Notes is 18. Ibid., p. 42. discussed by Herbert, S.: The place of 19. The Geological and Zoological Notes man in the development of Darwin's have been described and analyzed by theory of transmutation: Part I. To July Gruber, H. E. and Gruber, V.: The eye 1837. and Grinnell, G.: The rise and fall of reason: Darwin's development during of Darwin's first theory of transmuta- the Beagle voyage. Isis 53:186-200, tion.J. Hist. Biol. 7:238-240, 262-63, 1962. 1974. 20. The Beagle Record, p. 9. 24. Stanbury, D., editor: A Narrative ofthe 21. Ibid., p. 299. Voyage of H. M.S. Beagle. London, 22. Barlow, N., editor: Darwin's ornitholog- Folio Society, 1977.

Bull. N.Y. Acad. Med.