Riding on Galápagos: In Which Charles Darwin Sneaks Up on and Surfs Tortoises for Science

Darwin on Galapagos, linocut 17.8 cm x 26.7 cm, 2nd ed., 2012 by Ele Willoughby

"The inhabitants believe that these animals are absolutely deaf; certainly they do not overhear a person walking closely behind them. I was always amused, when overtaking one of these great monsters as it was quietly pacing along, to see how suddenly, the instant I passed, it would draw in its head and legs, and uttering a deep hiss fall to the ground with a heavy sound, as if struck dead. I frequently got on their backs, and then, upon giving a few raps on the hinder part of the shell, they would rise up and walk away; but I found it very difficult to keep my balance."

-Charles Darwin, 1835, Galápagos Islands

I initially carved this block to honour the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin. Today he would be celebrating his 206th. I depicted Darwin as a young man, during his famous voyage on the HMS Beagle and its stay in the Galápagos Islands. The giant tortoises which thrived on the islands, and the variations in species from island to island were instrumental to his thinking, when he later wrote "On the origin of species" which divulged his understanding of biological evolution. The cultural impact of "On the origin of species" is immense. Darwin built on the growing understanding that not only did life evolve, but that this could occur without some sort of supernatural control; he made the intellectual leap to argue that natural selection was all that was needed to explain the evolution of life on Earth. Yet somehow, Darwin failed to mention tortoise surfing in this great work.

Scientific Caricatures of the 19th Century

This is a 1882 cartoon of geologist/paleontology/theologian Wiliam Buckland sticking his head into a hyena den, drawn by geologist/paleontologist/clergyman William Conybeare, (via Edible Geography). (I was introduced to both of these characters by a good novel by Joan Thomas called Curiosity, based on the life of Mary Anning). It's surprisingly easy to find 19th century caricatures of scientists; I don't know if this is a function of the medium being more popular, or whether thinkers and scientists were so much more prominent that an educated public could be expected to both recognize them and appreciate the humour. Here we have a few choice selections.

Michael Faraday, FRS (22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867), the great physicist and chemist, meets Father Thames from Punch (21 July 1855). Faraday's many interests included what we would now call environmental science, and his 1855 letter to the Times on the foul state of the River Thames inspired his caricature.

“The great south sea caterpillar, transform’d into a Bath butterfly” (1795) by James Gillray is a caricature of English naturalist and botanist Joseph Banks (who famously sailed with Captain Cook, via Public Domain Review).

This 1863 lithograph shows Félix Nadar (from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division From the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division) - pseudonym of Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (6 April 1820 – 23 March 1910), a French photographer, caricaturist, journalist, novelist, and balloonist. I'm including him amongst the scientists for his pioneering work in the development (no pun intended) of photography, and because like Conybeare, he was both producing new science and caricatures. That some scientists and innovators themselves drew caricatures no doubt explains why they are also common subjexts. Though, one publication, Cartoon Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Men of the Day (1873) with drawings by Frederick Watty is a source of a great many (via Public Domain Review) including:

Charles Darwin (by Frederick Watty)

and

Sir Richard Owen, FRS KCB (20 July 1804 – 18 December 1892) was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and paleontologist (by Frederick Watty) who coined the word Dinosauria and opposed Darwin's theory of natural selection.