Alfred Russel Wallace 



stones of his theory. I greatly enjoyed my visit to Oxford, 

 and only regretted that I could not leave more time for 

 personal talk with yourself, for I am so deplorably ignorant 

 of modern physiology that I am delighted to get intelligible 

 explanations of its bearings on the subjects that most interest 

 me in science. I quite see all its importance in investigations 

 of the mechanism of colours, but there is so much still un- 

 known that it will be very hard to convince me that there is 

 no other possible explanation of the peacock's feather than 

 the *' continued preference by the females " for the most 

 beautiful males, in this one pointy " during a long line of 

 descent ^' — as Darwin says ! I expect, however, great light 

 from your new book. . . . — Believe me yours very faith - 



^^^^J> Alfred B. Wallace. 



Sir Francis Galton to A. R. Wallace 



42 Rutland Gate, S.W. May 24, 1890. 



Dear Mr. Wallace, — I send the paper with pleasure, and 

 am glad that you will read it, and I hope then see more 

 clearly than the abstract could show the grounds of my 

 argument. 



These finger-marks are most remarkable things. Of 

 course I have made out much more about them since 

 writing that memoir. Indeed I have another paper on 

 them next Thursday at the Royal Society, but that only 

 refers to ways of cataloguing them, either for criminal 

 administration, or what I am more interested in, viz. 

 racial and hereditary inquiry. 



What I have done in this way is not ready for publica- 

 tion, but I may mention (privately, please) that these per- 

 sistent marks, which seem fully developed in the sixth 

 month of foetal life, and appear under the reservations 

 and in the evidence published in the memoir to be prac- 

 tically quite unchanged during life, are not correlated with 



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