Milestones of Science Books

FITZROY, Robert; KING, Philip Parker & DARWIN, Charles.

Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and the Beagle, between the years 1826 and 1836, Describing Their Examination of the Southern Shores of South America, and the Beagle's Circumnavigation of the Globe. Volume one only.

London: Henry Colburn, 1839.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Item #002925

Volume one only. 8vo (235 x 148 mm). xxviii [4], 1-559, 556-597 [1] pp. including half-title, engraved frontispiece, errata leaf, and 16 engraved plates (including one folding map) and 2 folding maps loose in front cover pocket. Original publisher's blue blind-stamped cloth, gilt-lettered spine, yellow endpapers (rebacked preserving original spine, corners bumped and scuffed, some wear to extremities, staining of boards. Pages untrimmed. Light age-toning of text, some, mainly marginal, foxing and browning of plates and maps, short tears to folds of loose maps and a single long tear to folding map, all without loss, paper piece pasted to gutter of p.216 obscuring some text, a few pencil markings. Volume collated complete. ----

Norman 584; Sabin 37826; Freeman 10. FIRST EDITION, First volume of what is now universally known as the "Voyage of the Beagle." Freeman binding variant a. Under FitzRoy the voyage's objectives extended to include geophysical measurements, and the 'Beagle' was equipped with a variety of instruments and devices, including a lightning conductor and a large number of marine chronometers for measuring longitude. The Admiralty intended the officers to make a chain of exceptionally accurate measurements round the globe. The ship also carried out trials on Beaufort's wind scale" (Desmond, Moore, and Browne). Between 1832 and 1836 the Beagle visited the Cape Verde Islands, Brazil, Montevideo and Buenos Aires, Tierra del Fuego and Cape Horn, the Falkland Islands, Patagonia, the west coast of South America (Chiloé, Valparaíso, Lima), most famously the Galápagos Islands, Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia (Sydney, Tasmania, King George's Sound), the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Mauritius, Cape Town, and St Helena and Ascension. In all these places Darwin collected a vast numbers of specimens: insects, birds, molluscs, small vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants, meticulously recording their provenance, appearance, and behaviour in his notebooks and diaries. Of these the specimens the greatest and most important by far became the birds from the Galápagos Islands, which the ornithologist and artist John Gould helped Darwin to classify on his return to England. The similarities and differences between the species inhabiting different islands, and between the island species and those of continental South America, gave rise to Darwin's initial thoughts on the possibility of transmutation of characteristics in species, and represents to history the origin of his revolutionary and controversial theories of evolution. - Visit our website for additional images and information.

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