The remaining notebooks belonging to Charles Darwin are to be published online revealing his day-to-day thoughts while on the HMS Beagle.
Experts at English Heritage have digitised the books so observations and doodles made by the world famous naturalist during his round-the-world trip can be seen by the public.
Darwin, who lived in Down House near Orpington, scribbled down his immediate thoughts of what intrigued him most while on his trip and many of these notes were used in his On Origin of the Species book, written 150 years ago this week.
But one notebook, called Galapagos, has gone missing and as part of the online launch, history experts are appealing to the public to help track it down.
It is thought to have been stolen in the early 1980s from Down House, which is open to the public.
Simon Thurley, chief executive of English Heritage, said: “The missing notebook is out there somewhere, but it belongs at Down House, Darwin’s own home and where he referred to it over many years, all the while developing his revolutionary theory.
“We’re delighted that people can now leaf through Darwin’s notebooks online, but there’s a desperately sad gap on the Down House bookshelves and it’s one that we hope will be filled.”
The 14 Beagle notebooks give a glimpse into Darwin’s mind while out on the field and contain a mixture of geological, zoological and personal observations.
They include notes on fossils he excavated, his discovery of a new frog off Chile and his escape from a dangerous snow-storm.
The Galapagos notebook records Darwin’s first encounter with two creatures that first gave him the idea for his theory of evolution.
He saw a similarity between the mainland Chilean bird and the Galapagos mockingbirds, but he also noted the differences between his specimens from different islands.
In On the Origin of Species he used his findings to state that species were not fixed for all time, but were continuously evolving.
After his return to England from his five-year trip on the HMS Beagle in October 1836, he used specimens he had collected and the observations recorded in his notebooks to establish himself in the scientific world.
It was at Down House in Kent that he used his findings to develop his theory of evolution and wrote On the Origin of Species.
After his death in 1882, his family moved to Cambridge, but they return the 15 notebooks from the Beagle voyage to Down House, which now belongs to English Heritage.
It was not until the early 1980s that Darwin’s great grandson Professor Richard Keyes noticed the Galapagos book was missing.
It contains entries Darwin made between March and November 1835 when he was in Chile, Peru, the Galapagos and Tahiti.
Inside the front cover he had written “63.5 Darwin HM Beagle”.
Randal Keynes OBE, author, conservationist and great-grandson of Darwin, said it is only a matter of time before it resurfaces.
“When it does it must be returned to English Heritage and Down House,” he said.
“Our family always felt that the best Darwin material should be at Down House so that the public could see it in his home.
“The Galapagos notebook is of outstanding value for the history of science.
“If Darwin had not posed the questions in that notebook, he might never have written On the Origins of Species.”
To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the scientist’s birth and the 150 years since the publication of his book, English Heritage has created a new exhibition at Down House.
Visitors can view unseen objects, manuscript pages from On the Origin of Species and a rotating display of the Beagle notebooks.
For information or to see the Beagle notebooks online visit www.english-heritage.org.uk/darwin.
POSTED: 29/11/2009 14:00:00
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