Paper ambassadors of science

摘要

After Queen Elizabeth II, the most featured individual on British postage stamps is a scientist. Charles Darwin has appeared on four stamp issues, in 16 different stamp designs, in the past 30 years. The last set, issued on 12 February this year to commemorate the bicentenary of his birth, used a jigsaw design to illustrate the interconnectedness of the varied disciplines -zoology, botany, geology - that Darwin synthesized into his theory of evolution. A separate sheet of four stamps makes up the hydrographic map of the Galapagos Islands that resulted from the voyage of HMS Beagle.