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Exhibition Highlights
For a preview of the exhibition themes and artifacts, check out the exhibition sections described below.
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Introduction
A short video features contemporary scientists discussing their own roles in building on Darwin’s work. Enter the gallery and encounter the naturalist’s original magnifying glass, the lens through which Darwin observed nature in minute detail.
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The World before Darwin
In Darwin’s time, most people, even scientists, believed that species had existed in their current form since the world began. See classic illustrations and mounted animal skeletons representing the well-ordered but unchanging Victorian view of nature.
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Early Life
Born into a wealthy family, Darwin had little interest in school, but he was an avid naturalist, a collector and observer of plants, insects, and rocks.
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Don’t miss:
The book Darwin’s grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, wrote on his own idea of evolution.
Some of the beetles and other insects Darwin joyfully collected in his youth.
A film on Darwin’s life and work, narrated by the scientist’s great-great-grandson, Randal Keynes and drawing on archival photographs and new images of Darwin’s journals, manuscripts, and homes.
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Voyage of the Beagle
Trace the evolution of Darwin’s thinking throughout his five-year voyage around the world to map the oceans and islands of South America and the South Pacific.
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Don’t miss:
The original letter that changed Darwin’s life: an invitation to serve as a naturalist aboard the HMS Beagle.
Notes and letters Darwin sent to friends and family offer a glimpse of his excitement, his thought processes…and his problems with seasickness.
Live animals play a starring role here: three ornate Argentinian horned frogs and a five- foot- long South American green iguana.
Fossils and mounted specimens of the unique plants and animals that captivated Darwin: rheas, giant sloths, and armadillos (including the cast of a huge fossil glyptodont, an extinct armadillo-like creature the size of a cow); Galápagos tortoises with different shell shapes adapted to their specific islands; mockingbirds, penguins, and blue-footed boobies, and much, much more.
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The Idea Takes Shape
Returning to England, Darwin settled in London and began the intellectual journey that continued for years as he examined the specimens he had brought back from his trip and began writing up his research.
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Don’t miss:
Darwin’s notebooks, including a dramatic illustration of the first evolutionary tree Darwin sketched in his notebook.
Charming love letters between Charles and his wife Emma, plus Darwin’s personal notes debating with himself whether or not to marry.
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Continue through Exhibition Highlights. >>
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