Why creationists hate this one building in Golden Gate Park

Rollo Beck’s Expedition That Rebuilt California Academy of Sciences

In June 1905, eight brave scientists set sail from San Francisco on the schooner Academy bound for the Galapagos Islands.

Led by Rollo Beck, they spent 17 months hopping between 13 islands, gathering a mind-blowing 78,000 specimens. Back home, disaster struck.

While the team was still at sea, the 1906 earthquake and fire wiped out their museum and all its collections.

Yet when they docked on November 29, their cargo of 266 giant tortoises and 3,800 finches became the new foundation for the California Academy of Sciences.

These carefully labeled specimens later helped prove Darwin right.

The Academy’s stunning Galapagos exhibits now tell this remarkable story of scientific rescue against all odds.

San Francisco Scientists Bought a Schooner for $1,000 to Explore the Galapagos

The California Academy of Sciences bought the old Coast Survey schooner Earnest for just $1,000 in 1904.

They fixed it up and called it Academy. Director Leverett Mills Loomis put together a team of eight young scientists led by Rollo Beck.

The group included botanist Alban Stewart, geologist Washington Ochsner, bug expert Francis Williams, bird specialists Edward Gifford and Joseph Hunter, plus reptile experts Joseph Slevin and Ernest King.

Many worried Galapagos species were vanishing quickly. Anna Dickie officially christened the schooner on June 23, 1905.

Eight Young Men Set Sail on a Rickety Boat with Big Dreams

The schooner Academy left San Francisco on June 28, 1905, towed out to sea by the Spreckels tug Relief.

The 89-foot boat carried eight scientists plus three crew members heading south. They stopped at several Mexican islands to collect specimens.

Beck wrote in his journal that the ship had serious design flaws: “Ship [down by] stern, & keel not far enough forward, makes it difficult to sail on wind.”

The scientists worked as sailors too, fixing the boat, scraping barnacles, and mending torn sails throughout their trip.

The Team Found Nearly Empty Islands Perfect for Scientific Work

Academy dropped anchor at Española on September 24, 1905, after traveling almost three months.

The scientists found the islands mostly empty except for a small Ecuadorian settlement on Isabela with about 200 people.

The team started collecting specimens across multiple islands right away. Each scientist kept detailed notes about what they found and where.

They wanted to document the islands’ plants and animals before they disappeared and gather specimens for museum study back home.

Scientists Worked Island by Island Through Rough Conditions

The team visited 13 islands over 17 months, carefully noting where each specimen came from.

They worked through tough conditions: hot weather, boring tasks, limited supplies, and months without outside contact. Slevin and King focused on reptiles and amphibians, writing detailed notes for each animal.

Stewart looked at plants across the islands, noting which ones were common or rare. Ochsner studied the rock formations, layers, and volcanic features.

They Brought Back 266 Giant Tortoises, Including the Last of Their Kind

The expedition collected 266 giant tortoises, the largest single collection ever put together. Their collection included the last known member of at least one subspecies.

They found living tortoises where others had seen them before, plus made first-time finds on Fernandina, Rábida, and Santa Fe.

Rollo Beck found the only Fernandina Island tortoise in April 1906, which became the only known museum specimen of this type.

The scientists noted tortoises were already hard to find on some islands because whalers had hunted them for a century.

Nearly 4,000 Finches Were Carefully Labeled with Their Home Islands

Beck, Gifford, and Hunter collected about 3,800 Darwin’s finches from across the islands.

Unlike Darwin, who mixed up his specimens, the Academy team carefully labeled each bird with exactly which island it came from.

The collectors also gathered eggs, nests, and wrote down what they saw about the birds’ behavior. Beck’s bird knowledge proved very valuable for identifying and preserving the delicate specimens.

Their careful notes about which species lived on which islands later turned out to be crucial for understanding evolution.

Back Home, Disaster Struck While the Team Was Still at Sea

On April 18, 1906, a massive 7.8 earthquake hit San Francisco while the expedition still worked in the Galapagos.

The fires that followed destroyed the Academy’s building on Market Street and almost all its collections over three days.

The reptile collection alone lost more than 100,000 specimens in the fire.

The expedition learned about this disaster weeks later but had to keep collecting. The scientists realized their work had suddenly become critical to their institution’s survival.

The Team Kept Working and Collected 78,000 Specimens

The scientists continued their systematic collecting despite knowing their home lay in ruins.

Their final collection totaled an impressive 78,000 biological specimens: plants, mollusks, insects, birds, mammals, and reptiles.

Every specimen was carefully preserved, labeled, and packed for the journey back to San Francisco. The collection represented the most complete survey of Galapagos biodiversity ever done at that time.

Their sixteen months of fieldwork produced specimens from nearly every accessible location across the island chain.

Thanksgiving Day Homecoming Revealed a City Still in Ruins

The Academy returned to San Francisco on Thanksgiving Day, November 29, 1906. The crew found their city still recovering from the earthquake and fire seven months earlier.

The schooner Academy served as a temporary storage facility and meeting place for the California Academy of Sciences.

The expedition’s 78,000 specimens became the foundation for rebuilding the Academy’s scientific collections from scratch.

Some historians believe the Academy might not have survived without this perfectly-timed expedition bringing back so many valuable specimens.

Their Specimens Helped Create the Modern Classification of Galapagos Tortoises

John Van Denburgh, the Academy’s reptile curator, studied the expedition’s specimens and identified four additional tortoise populations not known before.

His 1914 book on Galapagos tortoises created the classification system still used today. The specimens provided the first complete dataset that let scientists compare species between different islands.

The Academy’s collection became the world’s largest from the Galapagos, attracting researchers from around the globe.

The carefully labeled specimens allowed scientists to test Darwin’s theories about how species adapt differently on separate islands.

A British Scientist Used Their Finches to Prove Darwin Right

British biologist David Lack spent April through August 1939 studying the expedition’s finch specimens at the California Academy. Lack first thought different beak shapes just helped finches recognize their own species.

But while thinking about the data during wartime, Lack realized the beaks evolved for specialized feeding on different types of seeds.

His 1947 book “Darwin’s Finches,” which he dedicated to the California Academy, helped establish evolutionary biology as a serious science.

The expedition’s carefully documented specimens provided solid evidence that validated Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.

Visiting California Academy of Sciences, California

The California Academy of Sciences at 55 Music Concourse Drive in Golden Gate Park houses specimens from the famous 1905-1906 Galapagos Expedition that became the foundation for rebuilding after the 1906 earthquake destroyed everything.

You can see these historic collections on VIP Tours for $24. 95 behind-the-scenes. Morrison Planetarium passes are first-come first-served via lobby QR code.

Regular admission runs $39-55 depending on age and season. Get $3 off when you arrive by transit, bike, or walking.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

Read more from this brand:

• How Gold Rush settlers stayed alive using salt from this antique San Francisco schooner
• How California lost the Tongva people, an ancient tribe of Los Angeles Basin
• Patton thought French wouldn’t fight in 1942 — then they killed 1,052 Americans at Casablanca