![]() ![]() It became one of the most popular natural history travel journals of the 19th century. In 1858 he sent an article outlining his theory to Darwin it was published, along with a description of Darwin's own theory, in the same year.Īccounts of his studies and adventures there were eventually published in 1869 as The Malay Archipelago. While he was exploring the archipelago, he thought about evolution, and had his famous insight on natural selection. Why was it, he wondered, that the animals and plants on the Bali side of the channel were of Asian types, while those on the Lombok side were Australasian in type? This had to mean that the western group had evolved from common western stock, while the eastern group had evolved from a common eastern stock. I believe the western part to be a separated portion of continental Asia, while the eastern is a fragmentary prolongation of a former west Pacific continent". The boundary line passes between islands closer together than others belonging to the same group. yet there is nothing on the map or on the face of the islands to mark their limits. ![]() "In this archipelago there are two distinct faunas rigidly circumscribed, which differ as much as do those of Africa and South America. Yet their flora and fauna were so different. Bali and Lombok were two islands in the archipelago only 17 miles apart at the widest (28 km), roughly the same size and with the same climate, soil, elevation and aspect. His observations of the clear zoological differences across a narrow strait in the archipelago led to his proposing the zoogeographical boundary now known as the Wallace Line. ![]() More than a thousand of them were species new to science. Wallace collected more than 125,000 specimens in the Dutch East Indies (more than 80,000 beetles alone). The East Indies Part of the area Wallace worked inįrom 1854 to 1862, age 31 to 39, Wallace travelled through the Dutch East Indies (now Malaysia and Indonesia), to collect specimens for sale and to study nature. Wallace and the crew spent ten days in an open boat before being picked up by the brig Jordeson. He could only save part of his diary and a few sketches. All of the specimens Wallace had on the ship, most of his collection, were lost. After twenty-eight days at sea, balsam in the ship's cargo caught fire and the crew was forced to abandon ship. On 12 July 1852, Wallace embarked for England on the brig Helen. Wallace continued charting the Amazon for four years, collecting specimens and making notes on the peoples, the languages, the geography, flora, and fauna. After that they agreed to collect independently. For the first year they settled in a villa near the city, collecting birds and insects. īates and Wallace sailed from Liverpool in April 1848, arriving in Pará (now Belém) at the end of May. They looked at South American plants and animals in the main collections. The two friends, who were both by now experienced amateur entomologists, met in London to prepare themselves. Also, the travellers planned to to " gather facts towards solving the problem of the origin of species", as Wallace put it in a letter to Bates. The plan was funded by sending specimens back to London, where an agent would sell them for a commission. Wallace and Bates discussed the idea of an expedition to the Amazon. The great adventure Īfter a few years of working as a railway surveyor with his brother, Wallace's life was changed by meeting Henry Walter Bates in Leicester in 1847. He wrote a book on biogeography (the distribution of animals). On the other side are species mostly of Asian origin. While in Indonesia he drew the Wallace Line which divides Indonesia into two parts. ![]() He went first to the Amazon River basin with Henry Walter Bates, and later to Malaya and Indonesia. Wallace did extensive natural history exploring. This was published in 1858 together with Charles Darwin's idea. He is best known for proposing a theory of natural selection. A photograph of Wallace taken in Singapore in 1862Īlfred Russel Wallace OM, FRS (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, biologist and social activist. ![]()
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