The Cambridge University, UK, has published a searchable online version of the complete works of scientist Charles Darwin.

The site, http://www.darwin-online.org.uk, features several volumes of text, and hundreds of thousands of images of original publications, as also downloadable audio files.

The creators of the Web site point out that the archive is not yet complete, and that manuscripts and other material will be added over the next two years. Meanwhile, much of the material comes from the Darwin Archive housed at Cambridge University.

In a statement, John van Wyhe, project director for the site, said that the idea is to make these important works as accessible as possible; as some people can get to know what Darwin is all about, only in that way.

The works featured include the first edition of the "Journal of Researches" (1839), "The Descent of Man" (1871), "The Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Beagle" (1838-43) and the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th editions of the "On the Origin of Species".

van Wyhe said that one of Darwin's works, the notebook in which he had recorded his immediate thoughts on the "Galapagos Islands," was stolen in the early 1980s, and that it is still missing, but that the text has been transcribed from microfilm.

There are also over 150 secondary texts about Darwin and his work on the site. As of now, only 50 percent of the content available to the project has been digitized. The rest of the material is expected to be available by 2009.

van Wyhe explained that the decision to create Darwin online emerged from difficulties researching Darwin at an Asian university. He said that he had written to lots of people over the world to get hold of texts for the project, and had got a really positive reaction from all of them regarding the proposed online collection.