catalogue new species so that they could be sent back for further research in England. It is commonly thought that Darwin used the voyage to test his theory of evolution, but this is highly unlikely. At the time Darwins interests were purely geological as can be seen by his correspondence with his sister. For instance, writing about the fossils which he discovered he said, All the interest which I individually feel about these fossils is their connection with the geology of the Pampas(Darwin, 1958). Furthermore, Darwin himself confessed that he could not have appreciated the significance of his findings while on the voyage, because he lacked the necessary training in dissection and drawing as well as the knowledge of comparative anatomy. It was only much later when Darwin returned from the voyage, and when Owen identified the fossils, that Darwin began to examine them as zoological, rather then geological, phenomena.(Himmelfarb,1959) The voyage turned out to be very productive for Darwin, who upon his return in 1836 began to work on the conversion of the diary, which he kept during the voyage, into a journal suitable for publication. The Journal was first published in 1839 under the title Journal and Remarks, as Volume III of the Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of H.M.S. Adventures and Beagle.(Vorzimmer, 1970) However, enough people thought that Darwins work was sufficiently important to warrant a separate publication, and in 1845 a second edition was published under the name Journal of Research into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited during the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle Round the World .Darwin Discovers EvolutionIt appears to be that only sometime in 1837 did Darwin first start to entertain the idea of evolution seriously. (Himmelfarb, 1959) The proof for this lies in the notebook that he kept from July 1837 to February 1838. In particular, the following statement from the notebook provides valuable insight: In J...
