Charles Darwin's microscope. 19th-century page and illustration of a microscope made for British naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-1882). Darwin's theory of evolution, published as 'On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection' (1859), was aided by his microscopy work on barnacles and other organisms. This is an aquatic microscope, similar to the one that Darwin took on his famous voyage in the 1830s on HMS Beagle. This page is from 'A Treatise on the Construction, Proper Use, and Capabilities of Smith, Beck, and Beck's Achromatic Microscopes' (1865) by microscope manufacturer Richard Beck (1827-1866).