Explorer Gallery

HMS Beagle Ship laid up Darwins Voyage

"Beagle laid ashore, River Santa Cruz". Copperplate engraving, art by Conrad Martens, engraved by T. Landseer. Published by H. Colburn 1838. Plate from The Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of HMS Adventure and Beagle'. The Beagle was grounded for repairs on the 16th April 1834 to repair damage caused by a rock at Port Desire and to check the copper sheets were in tact (Fitzroy notes they were about to enter the Pacific where worms soon eat their way through unprotected planks). They found that a piece of the false keel had been knocked off and the copper was heavily rubbed in places. The carpenter Mr. May repaired it all in one tide. The Beagle undertook a repainting and refit while Fitzroy, Darwin and a small crew explored several days upriver

© PAUL D STEWART/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

1775 Captain James Cook explorer

James Cook, Captain of HMS Barc Endeavour (b. 7th November 1728 - d. 14th February 1779). Steel engraving by E. Scriven 1833 with later hand colouring, after the painting by N. Dance 1775/6 in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. Dance's painting was considered "an excellent likeness" at the time. Explorer, navigator and cartographer, Cook's voyages to the South Seas were the foremost scientific explorations of the 18th century. He was accompanied on his first voyage by botanist (and later President of the Royal Society) Joseph Banks who commissioned the painting upon which this engraving is based. His crew became the first Europeans to see Australia's eastern shore. During later voyages he looked for the Antarctic continent and searched for the northwest passage, charting and discovering islands as he went. He was killed while ashore in Hawaii during a dispute with its inhabitants

© This image is Paul D. Stewart 2009. Do not reproduce without permission of the photographer at Stewartpauld@aol.com

Amundsens Tent at the South Pole, January 1912, (1913). Artist: Henry Bowers

Amundsen's Tent at the South Pole, January 1912, (1913). Expedition leader Captain Robert F Scott (1868-1912), Dr Edward Wilson (1872-1912) and Petty Officer Edgar Evans (1876-1912) died on the way back from the South Pole. The final expedition of British Antarctic explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912) left London on 1 June 1910 bound for the South Pole. The Terra Nova Expedition, officially the British Antarctic Expedition (1910-1913), included a geologist, a zoologist, a surgeon, a photographer, an engineer, a ski expert, a meteorologist and a physicist among others. Scott wished to continue the scientific work that he had begun when leading the Discovery Expedition to the Antarctic in 1901-04. He also wanted to be the first to reach the geographic South Pole. Scott, accompanied by Dr Edward Wilson, Captain Lawrence Oates, Lieutenant Henry Bowers and Petty Officer Edgar Evans, reached the Pole on 17 January 1912, only to find that the Norwegian expedition under Amundsen had beaten them to their objective by a month. Delayed by blizzards, and running out of supplies, Scott and the remainder of his team died at the end of March. Their bodies and diaries were found eight months later. From Scott's Last Expedition, Volume I. [Smith, Elder & Co., London, 1913]

© The Print Collector / Heritage-Images