Darwin's map. View of a map of the Galapagos Islands at Down house, Kent, England, where Charles Darwin (1809-1882) lived for the last 40 years of his life. It was at this house that he wrote his revolutionary work On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859), and he did all his major thinking and writing there. Darwin visited the Galapagos Islands during his voyage on the HMS Beagle (1831-1836). It is a small group of islands west of South America (right), and almost on the equator (horizontal line). He noticed the diversity in the animals on each island, which provided him with data for his theories. Down House is now open to the public.