Charles Darwin voyaged around the world aboard HMS Beagle, the British naval survey ship whose second voyage became one of the most influential scientific journeys in history.
Darwin joined the Beagle in 1831 as an unpaid naturalist and companion to its captain, Robert FitzRoy. The voyage lasted nearly five years, ending in 1836, and took the ship around South America, across the Pacific, to Australia, and through other parts of the world. Darwin collected specimens, fossils, and detailed observations throughout the journey.
His time in the Galápagos Islands became especially famous. Differences among mockingbirds, tortoises, and other island species helped him think about how populations change and diversify. The voyage did not immediately produce the finished theory of evolution by natural selection; Darwin developed that explanation over many years after returning to England.
HMS Beagle was a Cherokee-class brig-sloop launched in 1820. It served on three major surveying voyages, but Darwin’s second voyage is the one most closely associated with the ship. The vessel’s captain, FitzRoy, later gave Darwin a copy of Charles Lyell’s work on geology, which strongly influenced his thinking about deep time and gradual change.