While Darwin in the Beagle charted the Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Matthew James author of the book Collecting Evolution: The Galapagos Expedition that Vindicated Darwin, published in April by The Oxford University Press.

Matthew is The Professor of Geology and Department Chair at Sonoma State University.

Collecting Evolution gives us the history of the 1905-06 expedition to the Galapagos sponsored by The Museum of The California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.
most famous course to the islands, Matthew convincingly shows that the specimens and labeling that he accomplished were far surpassed by this modern expedition. Darwin visited four islands over the course of five weeks In 1906 the eight young scientist and three crewman stayed for over a year visited 13 islands and collected an astounding and disconcerting 78,000 specimens including 266 giant tortoises. This is a slaughter of mass proportions yet at the same time it was done in the name of conservation. The idea being back then that if they didn’t bring back a specimen of a dwindling species that species would be lost to science forever.

All of this is fascinatingly set against the backdrop of the great San Francisco Earthquake.