Naturalists at Sea: Scientific Travellers from Dampier to Darwin

This fascinating tale is told across time, ships, captains and crews, and the countries that sent or received these scientific travelers, naturalists who brought their skills and weaknesses to documenting the natural world during the Enlightenment and beyond. Williams (history, emeritus, Univ. of London) traces a network of connections that could have been confusing and overwhelming, but he does all the hard work of making these lives and adventures comprehensible. Gracefully embedding quotations from carefully documented sources, he relates the conditions, privations, successes, failures, health, and adventures of the many naturalists and crews who made voyages of discovery across the long 18th century. With many parallel stories, each chapter chronologically centers on one or several individuals who anchor its narrative, e.g., Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander; James Cook and George Vancouver. The last chapter is on Charles Darwin's own journey of discovery from 1831 to 1836 on HMS Beagle, made possible by his predecessors.