Naturalists at sea: scientific travellers from Dampier to Darwin

The 'rambling voyages' of William Dampier, self-taught naturalist

'Ten years of preparation; ten hours of exploration' : the Alaskan tribulations of Georg Wilhelm Steller

'My plants, my beloved plants, have consoled me for everything' : the fortunes and misfortunes of Philibert Commerson

'No people ever went to sea better fitted out for the purposes of natural history' : Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander

'A kind of Linnaean being' : the woes of Johann Reinhold Forster

'Curse scientists, and all science into the bargain' : Cook, Vancouver and 'experimental gentlemen'

'Devilish fellows who test patience to the very limit' : naturalists with La Pérouse and d'Entrecasteaux

'All our efforts will be focussed on natural history' : the scientific and political voyage of Alejandro Malaspina

'When a botanist first enters so remote a country he finds himself in a new world' : the Australian surveys of Nicolas Baudin and Matthew Flinders

'Like giving to a blind man eyes' : Charles Darwin on the Beagle.