CHARLES DARWIN

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 8, 10 January 1934, Page 6

CHARLES DARWIN

MEMORIAL EXPEDITION

LENGTHY RESEARCH CRUISE

(From ."The Post's" Representative.) SAN FBANCISCO, December 20. ' Tho Darwin. Memorial Expedition, preparing to sail.from here, will erect in March,, on Chatham Island, in the Galapagos Group, off the coast of Ecuador, a monument" to Charles Darwin. The expedition comprises fifteen men and two women, including scientists from a number of universities and other institutions, under'the-direction of-Dr. Wolfgang yon Hagen. '' ' . The expedition, will commemorate the centenary of Darwin !a voyage, which revolutionised man's conception of nat,ural history. It will travel leisurely in tho schooner Golden Horn. Two'years will bo spent in research, after tho ceremony of dedicating the monument. Tho itinerary will include tho east and west coasts of South America. Studies will be made in archaeology, zoology, botany, ethnology, and other subjects in Central and South America1 and adjacent islands.

Bocks and beetles interested Darwin more when he was studying medicine at Edinburgh and theology at Cambridge. He accepted eagerly the offer of a post as naturalist on the Beagle, 235 tons, ai)d, on Decomber 27, 1831, left England on a voyage that lasted five years* and furnished him with material for his essays and volumes on evolution and heredity. The first "leg" of the voyage, to Bio de Janeiro, occupied sixteen months. After about a year in the central-sector of the east coast, the Beagle continued to Tierra del Fuego, of whose people Darwin wrote later: "The difference between savage -and civilised man-is greater than between a wild^and domdsticated animal.','-., .' At Falkland Islands, in 1833, Darwin studied the history, of the "earth's "crust. He observed-the hat>it« of cattle in the Argentine hinterland;1 Late in 1834, the Beagle rounded-the Horn.1 A' year ivas spent in studying.tho plants, birds, and animals, of the Andean territory. For eight months in 1835,' the Beagle was at Valparaiso.' After visiting Galapagos, she sailed for Tahiti in • the autumn, and in January, the following year, was in Now Zealand waters. Stops were made in Australia, Cocos Island, Mauritius, The Cape, St.: Helena, Ascension,, and Pernambuco.* On October 2, 1836, Darwin arrived back in England. .