Galathea Expedition

The Galathea expeditions comprise a series of three Danish ship-based scientific research expeditions in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, carried out with material assistance from the Royal Danish Navy and, with regard to the second and third expeditions, under the auspices of the Danish Expedition Foundation. All three expeditions circumnavigated the world from west to east and followed similar routes.

The first Galathea Expedition took place from 1845 to 1847 and had political and scientific objectives. It was initiated by the King of Denmark, Christian VIII, with its main purposes the handover of the Danish colonies in India, following their sale to the British East India Company, as well as a final Danish attempt to explore and recolonise the Nicobar Islands in the Indian Ocean. Additional aims were the expansion of trade with China and the discovery of new trading opportunities, as well as making extensive scientific collections.

The Galathea was a three-masted sailing ship, a naval corvette which had been built in 1831 at the Gammelholm naval shipyard in Copenhagen. It was 43 m (141 ft) in length and had a draught of 5 m (16 ft). When it departed on its voyage under the leadership of Captain Steen Andersen Bille it carried 231 seamen and scientists, 36 guns, and supplies for one year.

The scientists included physician and assistant botanist Didrik Ferdinand Didrichsen, botanist Bernhard Casper Kamphǿvener, entomologist Carl Emil Kiellerup, geologist Hinrich Johannes Rink and zoologists Wilhelm Friedrich Georg Behn and Johannes Theodor Reinhardt, not all of whom remained for the duration of the voyage, as well as sketch artist Johan Christian Thornam and genre painter Poul August Plum.

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