F3704    Book:     Armstrong, Patrick. 1985. Charles Darwin in Western Australia: A young scientist's perception of an environment. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.   Text   PDF

places ink-spills mar the manuscript the result of stormy weather giving the Beagle a rough passage perhaps. Charles didn't always give the full date, and, very rarely, he appears to be in error: a page of his notes on the Cocos-Keeling Islands is dated 1835, yet in fact he visited that archipelago in April 1836, after having visited Western Australia. (Figs 7, 9, 10 and 12 show selected pages from the Beagle diaries, and Fig. 3 shows some of the relationships between the various Darwinian

F3704    Book:     Armstrong, Patrick. 1985. Charles Darwin in Western Australia: A young scientist's perception of an environment. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.   Text   PDF

Figure 3 Diagram showing relationship between the various Beagle Darwin sources showing the 'flow' of ideas. The upper part of the diagram shows the sources dating from the actual voyage, the lower part is those compiled after the return to England. The Red Notebook was commenced aboard the Beagle (probably during or just after the visit, to Australia) but continued in England. Besides shells, we know that Charles collected a large number of fish specimens, many of them 'caught by net in

A587    Book:     Armstrong, Patrick. 1985. Charles Darwin in Western Australia: A young scientist's perception of an environment. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.   Text

INDEX Aborigines, 13, 17-20, 36, 38, 40, 75 Allan, Mea, 3 Babington, Charles, 4, 11, 12 Bald Head, 7, 8, 19, 22, 23, 30, 43, 44, 45-9, 55, 56, 57, 71, 77 Barlow, Nora, 6, 73 Bathurst, NSW, 4 Beagle, H.M.S., 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 22, 23, 27, 29, 30, 35, 38, 39, 46, 52, 53, 57, 58, 62, 65, 67, 68, 71, 73, 74, 77 Beagle Record, The, 3 blackboys (grass-trees), 3, 19, 35, 36, 37, 61 Butler, Rev. Samuel, 3 Cape Leeuwin, 28, 29 Cape of Good Hope, 30, 41, 71-2 Cape Verde

F3704    Book:     Armstrong, Patrick. 1985. Charles Darwin in Western Australia: A young scientist's perception of an environment. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.   Text   PDF

INDEX Aborigines, 13, 17-20, 36, 38, 40, 75 Allan, Mea, 3 Babington, Charles, 4, 11, 12 Bald Head, 7, 8, 19, 22, 23, 30, 43, 44, 45-9, 55, 56, 57, 71, 77 Barlow, Nora, 6, 73 Bathurst, NSW, 4 Beagle, H.M.S., 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 22, 23, 27, 29, 30, 35, 38, 39, 46, 52, 53, 57, 58, 62, 65, 67, 68, 71, 73, 74, 77 Beagle Record, The, 3 blackboys (grass-trees), 3, 19, 35, 36, 37, 61 Butler, Rev. Samuel, 3 Cape Leeuwin, 28, 29 Cape of Good Hope, 30, 41, 71-2 Cape Verde

A587    Book:     Armstrong, Patrick. 1985. Charles Darwin in Western Australia: A young scientist's perception of an environment. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.   Text

The Beagle in fact sailed from Port Jackson on 30 January 1836, at the height of the southern hemisphere summer, and thus, quite correctly, Captain FitzRoy took the southerly route. However, the actual course taken by the ship was something of a compromise, for the Swan River was not visited (what would Darwin's comments have been upon Perth and Fremantle, I wonder?), yet the Beagle did put in to the Cocos-Keeling Islands. Darwin's ideas on coral reefs and atolls were just developing, and a

F3704    Book:     Armstrong, Patrick. 1985. Charles Darwin in Western Australia: A young scientist's perception of an environment. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.   Text   PDF

and gneiss), some insects, several dozen species of shells,15 but apparently no plants, birds or reptiles. Charles was in some ways, quite systematic in his collecting. Amongst his notes from the Beagle period is a very detailed set of instructions16 for the preservation of specimens, apparently compiled from the advice of friends and colleagues in the hurried days before the Beagle sailed. Professor Henslow, for example, seems to have urged the young collector to 'Lay seeds in the capsule in

F3704    Book:     Armstrong, Patrick. 1985. Charles Darwin in Western Australia: A young scientist's perception of an environment. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.   Text   PDF

NOTES 1. The date of Charles Darwin's entry to school and brief particulars of his contemporaries can be established from Shrewsbury School Register, edited by J. E. Auden; Wordall, Mishall and Thomas, Oswestry, 1909. 2. The long association is documented in: Darwin and Henslow: the Growth of an Idea: Letters 1831-1860, edited by Nora Barlow; Bentham-Moxon Trust and John Murray, London, 1967. It is perhaps worth mentioning at this point that Darwin had with him aboard the Beagle a copy of

A587    Book:     Armstrong, Patrick. 1985. Charles Darwin in Western Australia: A young scientist's perception of an environment. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.   Text

We may in addition note that the possible association between Kind George's Sound and coral features must have been in Darwin's mind before he even went ashore: in the Voyage of the Beagle he relates how he accompanied Captain FitzRoy of Bald Head, 'the place mentioned by so many navigators, where some imagined they saw corals, and others petrified trees.' Darwin had evidently been doing the background reading necessary before the fieldwork commenced! Howard Gruber has suggested that during

F3704    Book:     Armstrong, Patrick. 1985. Charles Darwin in Western Australia: A young scientist's perception of an environment. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.   Text   PDF

We may in addition note that the possible association between Kind George's Sound and coral features must have been in Darwin's mind before he even went ashore: in the Voyage of the Beagle he relates how he accompanied Captain FitzRoy of Bald Head, 'the place mentioned by so many navigators, where some imagined they saw corals, and others petrified trees.' Darwin had evidently been doing the background reading necessary before the fieldwork commenced! Howard Gruber has suggested that during

A587    Book:     Armstrong, Patrick. 1985. Charles Darwin in Western Australia: A young scientist's perception of an environment. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.   Text

) contains a table for converting French metric to imperial units. Although later in his life Charles was in the habit of covering his books with annotations, he does not seem to have done this to the same extent while aboard the Beagle: a pity. We may picture, then, the young Charles Darwin, as he goes about his work. By day he is striding purposefully through the bush and scrub of southwestern Australia or clambering over the rocks along the shores of King George's Sound, hammer at his belt, notes

F3704    Book:     Armstrong, Patrick. 1985. Charles Darwin in Western Australia: A young scientist's perception of an environment. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.   Text   PDF

connections, on his return to Shrewsbury from the North Wales trip in late August, 1831, he received the offer of the appointment as Naturalist on the Beagle expedition. He accepted the position only after considerable opposition from his father: it was Charles' uncle (and eventual father-in-law), Josiah Wedgwood, who persuaded Dr Darwin to allow his twenty-two-year-old son to accept the position, and the ship sailed, after a couple of false starts due to bad weather, late in December 1831. The

F3704    Book:     Armstrong, Patrick. 1985. Charles Darwin in Western Australia: A young scientist's perception of an environment. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.   Text   PDF

Captain FitzRoy goes on to give a brief, somewhat critical, account of the landscape as seen from the anchorage, beginning the following paragraph: 'Next day, however, we found that ' The meteorological record shows the location of the Beagle at 10.00 a.m. on March 6 as 'King George's Sound, the winds variable the weather squally '. These accounts can be reconciled by assuming that although the ship came within sight of the Sound about mid-morning on the 6th, for some hours progress was slow

A587    Book:     Armstrong, Patrick. 1985. Charles Darwin in Western Australia: A young scientist's perception of an environment. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.   Text

encyclopaedia The Beagle Record (1979) barely mentions the visit to King George's Sound, and A.J. Marshall's Darwin and Huxley in Australia (published in 1970, but written over two decades earlier) devotes only ten lines to this part of Darwin's itinerary; Mea Allan's beautiful Darwin and His Flowers (1977) simply mentions his brief description of grass trees. However, in due course there appeared ground for believing that Darwin's experience in Australia, including Western Australia, was of some

A587    Book:     Armstrong, Patrick. 1985. Charles Darwin in Western Australia: A young scientist's perception of an environment. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.   Text

Chapter 4 GEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS ALTHOUGH CHARLES' ENTHUSIASM for the various branches of natural history fluctuated a little throughout his voyage, his interest in geology was maintained at a high level in most of the places at which the Beagle called. We have already seen that he collected few, if any, birds or reptiles in Western Australia, yet his notes on the geological sites that he visited while his ship lay at anchor in King George's Sound are copious. He collected rocks and fossil

A587    Book:     Armstrong, Patrick. 1985. Charles Darwin in Western Australia: A young scientist's perception of an environment. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.   Text

known writings by Darwin on the mutability of species written in about March 1837, after H.M.S. Beagle had returned to England. The notebook also contains geological, oceanographical, botanical and zoological entries and thus encapsulates Darwin's many-sided genius. It spans the final few months of the Beagle's voyage and the entry of the young Darwin into the company of some of England's most brilliant scientists in London in late 1836 and early 1837. It also is transitional in another sense

A587    Book:     Armstrong, Patrick. 1985. Charles Darwin in Western Australia: A young scientist's perception of an environment. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.   Text

, read what he could about similar phenomena elsewhere. He had aboard the Beagle a copy of the paper on Anglesea by his friend, John Henslow, in which very similar features were described. Points that interested him were noted down together with brief reminders of where he had seen such things earlier in his travels. The reference 'Fritton's appendix' (p. 6 of the notebook) confirms this general picture. This refers to an appendix by William Fritton on 'Geology' in Captain Phillip P. King's

F3704    Book:     Armstrong, Patrick. 1985. Charles Darwin in Western Australia: A young scientist's perception of an environment. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.   Text   PDF

encyclopaedia The Beagle Record (1979) barely mentions the visit to King George's Sound, and A.J. Marshall's Darwin and Huxley in Australia (published in 1970, but written over two decades earlier) devotes only ten lines to this part of Darwin's itinerary; Mea Allan's beautiful Darwin and His Flowers (1977) simply mentions his brief description of grass trees. However, in due course there appeared ground for believing that Darwin's experience in Australia, including Western Australia, was of some

F3704    Book:     Armstrong, Patrick. 1985. Charles Darwin in Western Australia: A young scientist's perception of an environment. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.   Text   PDF

Chapter 4 GEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS ALTHOUGH CHARLES' ENTHUSIASM for the various branches of natural history fluctuated a little throughout his voyage, his interest in geology was maintained at a high level in most of the places at which the Beagle called. We have already seen that he collected few, if any, birds or reptiles in Western Australia, yet his notes on the geological sites that he visited while his ship lay at anchor in King George's Sound are copious. He collected rocks and fossil

F3704    Book:     Armstrong, Patrick. 1985. Charles Darwin in Western Australia: A young scientist's perception of an environment. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.   Text   PDF

known writings by Darwin on the mutability of species written in about March 1837, after H.M.S. Beagle had returned to England. The notebook also contains geological, oceanographical, botanical and zoological entries and thus encapsulates Darwin's many-sided genius. It spans the final few months of the Beagle's voyage and the entry of the young Darwin into the company of some of England's most brilliant scientists in London in late 1836 and early 1837. It also is transitional in another sense

F3704    Book:     Armstrong, Patrick. 1985. Charles Darwin in Western Australia: A young scientist's perception of an environment. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.   Text   PDF

, read what he could about similar phenomena elsewhere. He had aboard the Beagle a copy of the paper on Anglesea by his friend, John Henslow, in which very similar features were described. Points that interested him were noted down together with brief reminders of where he had seen such things earlier in his travels. The reference 'Fritton's appendix' (p. 6 of the notebook) confirms this general picture. This refers to an appendix by William Fritton on 'Geology' in Captain Phillip P. King's

A587    Book:     Armstrong, Patrick. 1985. Charles Darwin in Western Australia: A young scientist's perception of an environment. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.   Text

to several of the hills Islands near the Sound. Incorporating the material in rough notes, probably written on 9 March, the third day of fieldwork, and almost certainly with the appropriate specimens on the chart table in the cabin of the Beagle before him, he went on: Near the settlement in Princess Royal Harbor, there is another system of six or eight dikes; these are a foot wide with a structure slightly prismatic, composed of a black base, prophyritic with very numerous small crystals of

F3704    Book:     Armstrong, Patrick. 1985. Charles Darwin in Western Australia: A young scientist's perception of an environment. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.   Text   PDF

to several of the hills Islands near the Sound. Incorporating the material in rough notes, probably written on 9 March, the third day of fieldwork, and almost certainly with the appropriate specimens on the chart table in the cabin of the Beagle before him, he went on: Near the settlement in Princess Royal Harbor, there is another system of six or eight dikes; these are a foot wide with a structure slightly prismatic, composed of a black base, prophyritic with very numerous small crystals of

A587    Book:     Armstrong, Patrick. 1985. Charles Darwin in Western Australia: A young scientist's perception of an environment. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.   Text

this? Would any two workmen ever hit on so beautiful, so simple yet so artificial a contrivance? It cannot be thought so. The one hand has surely worked throughout the universe. A Geologist perhaps would suggest that the periods of Creation have been distinct removed one from the other; that the Creator rested in his labor. (Journal) The 'Geologist' was perhaps himself, for this idea of multiple creations recurs in the Beagle writings: six months later for instance, he was to write to Henslow from

F3704    Book:     Armstrong, Patrick. 1985. Charles Darwin in Western Australia: A young scientist's perception of an environment. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.   Text   PDF

one locality with those of another marks much of the Beagle and post-Beagle writings, and his interest in the distribution of plants and animals was a fundamental component in the development of the species theory.46 A similar precision characterises his geological observations. For example here are the opening lines of his report on King George's Sound from his Geological Diary, see Figures 14 and 15: March 1836 King George's Sound The basal rock in the whole of this neighbourhood is granite

F3704    Book:     Armstrong, Patrick. 1985. Charles Darwin in Western Australia: A young scientist's perception of an environment. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press.   Text   PDF

hints in Charles Darwin's Beagle writings, before, during or subsequent to his Australian sojourn, to indicate that he was entertaining ideas concerning the transmutability of species. Yet the analogy between the Galapagos and Australia, the importance of isolation as a factor in evolution in his later writings, and the Red Notebook, possibly opened within sight of Western Australia, and containing, written after his return to England his first sketchy jottings on species change, all form points