SKETCH OF ALFRED BUSS EL WALLACE. 235 



SKETCH OF ALFKED EUSSEL WALLACE. 



ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE, an English naturalist, was born 

 at Usk, Monmouthshire, January 8, 1822. He was employed for 

 several years in the architectural office of his brother, and then de- 

 voted himself to natural liistory. In 1848 he accompanied Mr. IL W. 

 Bates in a scientific expedition to Brazil, where, after a protracted 

 sojourn in Para, he explored the primeval forests of the Amazon and 

 Rio Negro, returning to England in 1852. His valuable collections, 

 especially rich in the departments of ornithology and botany, were in 

 great part destroyed by shipwreck. In 1853 he published "Travels 

 on the Amazon and Rio Negro" and "Palm-Trees of the Amazon 

 and their Uses," and in 1854 undei'took a journey to the East Indies, 

 where for a period of nearly eight years he explored the greater part 

 of the islands constituting the Malay Archipelago, and portions of 

 Papua. While pursuing his researches relative to the fauna and flora 

 of these regions, Mr. Wallace, unaware of Darwin's previous labors 

 in the same direction, attempted the solution of the problem of the 

 origin of species, and arrived at almost the same general conclusions 

 which were simultaneously reached by that naturalist. His paper 

 " On the Tendency of Varieties to depart indefinitely from the Origi- 

 nal Type," transmitted through Sir Charles Lyell to the Linntean So- 

 ciety, was read before that body on July 1, 1858, coincidently with 

 the reading of Mr, Darwin's paper " On the Tendency of Species to 

 form Varieties, and on the Perpetuation of Species and Varieties by 

 means of Natural Selection." Though recognizing the efficacy of 

 natural selection in producing most of the changes attributed to its 

 action by Mr. Darwin, he denies its competence to effect, without the 

 joint agency of some higher cause, the transition to man from the 

 anthropoid apes. In 1862 Mr. Wallace returned to England, where 

 for several years he was mainly engaged in the classification of his 

 vast collection, which embraced upward of 100,000 entomological 

 specimens, and more than 8,000 birds. The results of his Eastern ex- 

 plorations were partially embodied in " The Malay Archipelago : the 

 Land of the Orang-utan and the Bird-of-Paradise" (1869). Mr. Wal- 

 lace has of late been prominently associated with the believers in the 

 so-called spiritualistic phenomena, to the examination of which he has 

 devoted special attention. His observations w-ere published in a se- 

 ries of essays in the Fortnightly Review for 1874, reprinted as "Mir- 

 acles and Modern Spiritualism" (1875).- In 1868 he received the 

 royal medal from the Royal Society, and in 1870 the gold medal from 

 the Geographical Society of Paris. In 1870 he published " Contribu- 

 tions to the Theory of Natural Selection." His elaborate work "On 

 the Geographical Distribution of Animals" (2 vols.) appeared in 187G 

 in English, French, and German. 



