The Wallace- Darwin Correspondence 



observations. Again, as to the saline solution without 

 nitrogen, would not the air supply what was required ? 



I quite agree that the book would have gained force 

 by rearrangement in the way you suggest, but perhaps he 

 thought it necessary to begin with a general argument in 

 order to induce people to examine his new collection of 

 facts. I am impressed most by the agreement of so many 

 observers, some of whom struggle to explain away their 

 own facts. What a wonderfully ingenious and suggestive 

 paper that is by Galton on ^' Blood Kelationship.'' It 

 helps to render intelligible many of the eccentricities of 

 heredity, atavism, etc. 



Sir Charles Lyell was good enough to write to Lord 

 Ripon and Mr. Cole^ about me and the Bethnal Green 

 Museum, and the answer he got was that at present no 

 appointment of a director is contemplated. I suppose they 

 see no way of making it a Natural History Museum, and 

 it will have to be kept going by Loan Collections of mis- 

 cellaneous works of art, in which case, of course, the South 

 Kensington people will manage it. It is a considerable dis- 

 appointment to me, as I had almost calculated on getting 

 something there. 



With best wishes for your good health and happiness, 

 believe me, dear Darwin, yours very faithfully, 



Alfred R. Wallace. 



P.S. — I have just been reading Howorth's paper in the 

 Journal of the Anthropological Institute. How perverse it 

 is. He throughout confounds '* fertility '' with '* increase 

 of population," which seems to me to be the main cause of 

 his errors. His elaborate accumulation of facts in other 

 papers in 'Nature, on '^ Subsidence and Elevation of Land/' 

 I believe to be equally full of error, and utterly untrust- 

 worthy as a whole. — A. R. W. 



1 Sir Henry Cole, K.C.B. (1808-80). 

 277 



