HMS Beagle

HMS Beagle was a Royal Navy Cherokee-class brig-sloop, later re-rigged as a bark, best known for carrying Charles Darwin on her second survey voyage of 1831 to 1836 under Captain Robert FitzRoy. The voyage charted South American coasts and the Galapagos and gave Darwin the observations that led to the theory of evolution by natural selection. The Beagle also pioneered the use of chronometers for accurate longitude on survey work. The ship exemplifies the scientific survey tradition of the nineteenth-century navy.