The Darwin Sound is an expanse of seawater which forms a westward continuation of the

Beagle Channel Beagle Channel (; Yahgan: ''Onašaga'') is a strait in the Tierra del Fuego Archipelago, on the extreme southern tip of South America between Chile and Argentina. The channel separates the larger main island of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego fr ...

and links it to the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

Londonderry Island Londonderry Island () is an island (UFI -889706) in the Magallanes Region at the western end of the Beagle Channel and Darwin Sound. The island was named by the captain of HMS Beagle, Robert FitzRoy, whose maternal grandfather was The 1st Marque ...

and Stewart Island, not far from the southern tip of

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

. It thus forms a navigable link across

Tierra del Fuego Tierra del Fuego (, ; Spanish for "Land of the Fire", rarely also Fireland in English) is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main island, Isla G ...

between the Pacific and

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

s as an alternative to going round the hazardous rocky headland of

Cape Horn Cape Horn ( es, Cabo de Hornos, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which are the Diego Ramírez ...

. It was given the name ''Darwin Sound'' during

the Voyage of the Beagle ''The Voyage of the Beagle'' is the title most commonly given to the book written by Charles Darwin and published in 1839 as his ''Journal and Remarks'', bringing him considerable fame and respect. This was the third volume of ''The Narrative ...

by HMS ''Beagle'''s captain

Robert FitzRoy Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy (5 July 1805 – 30 April 1865) was an English officer of the Royal Navy and a scientist. He achieved lasting fame as the captain of during Charles Darwin's famous voyage, FitzRoy's second expedition to Tierra de ...

after

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...

's prompt action, with others, saved them from being marooned. To carry out their

hydrographic survey Hydrographic survey is the science of measurement and description of features which affect maritime navigation, marine construction, dredging, offshore oil exploration/offshore oil drilling and related activities. Strong emphasis is placed ...

work the ship’s boats were often used at a considerable distance from the ship. In the Beagle Channel they looked at its north shore in amazement at the vast "beryl blue" glaciers on the steep mountains of the Cordillera of the Andes, which fed down to the water and formed

iceberg An iceberg is a piece of freshwater ice more than 15 m long that has broken off a glacier or an ice shelf and is floating freely in open (salt) water. Smaller chunks of floating glacially-derived ice are called "growlers" or "bergy bits". The ...

s. On 29 January 1833 they had their boats drawn up on the beach about half a mile (1 km) from the ship and were dining when a huge mass of ice fell from the face of a glacier and plunged into the water with a "thundering crash". "Great rolling waves" rushed toward the shore threatening the small boats. Darwin was quick to act. He rushed down to the shore with two or three of the men and they hauled the boats to safety just as the first breaker crashed down, at considerable danger to themselves. Captain Fitzroy was impressed and next day named a nearby expanse of water ''Darwin Sound''. Darwin felt that he had acted out of fear rather than bravado, noting in his ''Diary'' that, had they lost the boats, "how dangerous would our lot have been, surrounded... by hostile Savages & deprived of... provisions." The highest peak to the north of the Channel was named Mount Darwin by FitzRoy to celebrate Darwin's 25th birthday on 12 February 1834.

References

Adrian Desmond Adrian John Desmond (born 1947) is an English writer on the history of science and author of books about Charles Darwin. Life He studied physiology at London University and went on to study history of science and vertebrate palaeontology at Unive ...

and James Moore, (1991) ''Darwin'' (London: Michael Joseph, the Penguin Group, *Fitzroy, R. (1839) ''Narrative of the surveying voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle between the years 1826 and 1836, describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagle's circumnavigation of the globe. Proceedings of the second expedition, 1831-36, under the command of Captain Robert Fitz-Roy, R.N.'' London: Henry Colbur
p. 217
*Keynes, R. D. (ed. 2001) ''Charles Darwin's Beagle diary''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
p. 140
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