The Galapagos Islands were made famous after been visited by Charles Darwin in 1835 and it is also t he place where you too can learn about natural evolution by exploring through the main 13 major Islands and 6 smaller ones.
This book is my personal invitation to experience the adventure of cruising, walking, swimming or snorkeling with playful sea lions. Also you can have the opportunity –as Darwin did- to learn from Galapagos topography, ecology, culture and friendly inhabitants.
The term "Galápagos" –"saddle" refers to the Spanish name given to the shells of saddlebacked Giant Land Tortoises that inhabit some of the islands.
The archipelago has been known by many different names, including the "Archipiélago de Colón, Islas de Colónumio" or "Enchanted Islands" because of the way in which the strong and swift currents made navigation difficult. The oldest crude navigation chart of the islands was done by the buccaneer Ambrose Cowley in 1684. He named the islands after some of his fellow pirates or after the English noblemen who helped the pirates' cause. More recently, the Ecuadorian government gave most of the islands Spanish names. While the Spanish names are official, many users continue to use the older English names, particularly as those were the names used when Charles Darwin visited the area.
Charles Darwin's observations on the structure of the living world and his radical ideas on the gradual evolution of the species transformed nature's studies from a collection of curious but disconnected facts into a vigorous and diversified field of natural sciences. The foundation for his theory of evolution by natural selection is henceforth traced back to a five-year voyage around the world as a naturalist on board HMS Beagle. The voyage's official mission was to map the east and west coasts of South America and to complete a series of chronometric readings while circumnavigating the globe.
