Darwin's Armada

"Charles Darwin, HMS Beagle, 1831-36. Sent to Cambridge to join the clergy, the young Darwin emerged with a passion for naturalism and an invitation to sail on a naval survey vessel to South America, New Zealand and Australia. That journey would change his life, and the course of modern science. Joseph Hooker, HMS Erebus, 1839-43. Inspired by Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle, assistant-surgeon Hooker undertook his own dramatic voyage of exploration, from the Cook Islands to the Antarctic via the high society of Hobart. His botanical research added critical evidence to Darwin's developing ideas on evolution, and he became Darwin's closest ally. Thomas Huxley, HMS Rattlesnake, 1846-50. 'Darwin's Bulldog' would become evolution's most effective champion against the clergy (coining the term 'agnostic'). As a brilliant, ascerbic young man, Huxley was determined to make his name through discoveries in marine biology in the Southern Hemisphere - but his most improbable discovery was that in Sydney he fell in love. Alfred Wallace, the Amazon and South-East Asia, 1848-66. The least celebrated but perhaps the most brilliant of the four. During his many years in remote jungles as a professional