Mr Darwin

3 Pages 687 Words

Charles Darwin
Like many modern students, Charles Darwin exceeded only in subjects that
intrigued him.

Although his father was a physician, Darwin was uninterested in medicine
and he was unable

to stand the sight of surgery. He did eventually obtain a degree in
theology from Cambridge

University, although theology too was of minor interest to him. What
Darwin really liked to

do was to tramp over hills, observing plants and animals, collecting new
specimens,

scrutinizing their structures, and categorizing his findings.

In 1831, when Darwin was only 22 years old, the British government sent
Her Majesty^Òs Ship

Beagle on a 5 year expedition that would take them first along the
coastline of South

America and then onward around the world. As was common on such
expeditions, the Beagle

would carry along a naturalist to observe and collect geological and
biological specimens

encountered along the route. Thanks to the recommendation of one of
Darwin^Òs previous

college professors, he was offered the position of naturalist aboard the
Beagle.

The Beagle sailed to South America, making many stops along the coast.
Here Darwin

observed the plants and animals of the tropics and was stunned by the
diversity of species

compared with Europe.

Perhaps the most significant stopover of the voyage was the month spent in
the Galapagos

Islands off of the northwestern coast of South America. It was here that
Darwin found huge

populations of tortoises; and he found that different islands were home to
distinctively

different types of tortoises. He then found that on islands without
tortoises, pricky pear

cactus plants grew with their juicy pads and fruits spread out over the
ground. And on

islands that had hourdes of tortoises, the prickly pears grew
substantially thick, tall

trunks, bearing the fleshy pads and fruits high above the reach of the
tough mouthed

tortoises. He the...