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Posted: 09 Jul 2023

Taken: 08 Jul 2023

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ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE •
A LIFE •
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Peter Raby •

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The Three Wise Men: Darwin, Hooker and Lyell
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 Dinesh
Dinesh club
The exchange continued: Bates was reading Lyell, perhaps on Wallace’s recommendation. Wallace was re-reading Darwin’s ‘Joiurnal’. He could have ordered the revised 1845 edition for the Neath Philosophical and literary Society. In this edition he might have remarked on Darwin’s more expansive comments on the Fuegians; and on the hint about the ‘little world within itself’ of the Galapagos Islands, where, ‘but in space and time, we seem to be brought somewhat near to the great fact – that mystery of mysteries – the first appearances of new beings on this earth.’ of the thirteen species of the ‘most singular group of finches,’ all peculiar to the archipelago, Darwin commented, ‘Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure in one small, intimately related group of birds, one might really fancy that, from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends.’ such hints were not lost on Wallace, who stored away the Galapagos comment for further reference. By April 1846, Wallace was keeping natural history journal – ‘ sort of day book in which I insert all my captures in every branch of Natural Hist. with the day of the month, locality etc. and any remarks I have to make on specific characters, habits, etc.’ he accepted Bates’ invitation to exchange monthly list. ~ Page 28

The Sarawak paper was published in September 1855. Wallace waited in vain for reaction, either hostile or complimentary. None came, apart from Steven’s annoying message. Darwin read the paper, and made some annotations in the margin of his copy: ‘Nothing very new’ – ‘Uses myt simile of the tree’ – ‘It seems all creation with him.’ Darwin cannot have read the paper very carefully, and was perhaps misled by Wallace’s use of the word ‘create’ in connection with the Galapagos species, or by his unusual use of the word ‘antitype,’ when ‘prototype’ might have been made the meaning clearer. Hemight have already discounted Wallace as a potential theoriser of any weight, judging him by his inconsistent and comparatively amateurish book on the Amazon. But others had absorbed the implications, and alerted Darwin. Edward Blyth, whose own writings had been noted carefully by Wallace, wrote from Calcutta, “Good! Upon the whole!’ ; friend Wallace had ‘put the matter well.’ ‘Has it at all unsettled your ideas regarding the persistence of species,’ Blyth asked directly, unaware of the private direction of Darwin’s thoughts, ‘not perhaps so much from novelty of argument, as by the lucid collation of facts and phenomena?” Charles Lyell’s own monumental works on the geological record provided the underpinning for Darwin, as indeed they did for Wallace, and perhaps not surprisingly Lyell sensed the significance of the Sarawak paper. He began a new notebook on species, and started to contemplate the worrying possibility of transmutation. One a visit to Down, Darwin’s Kent home, Lyell was initiated Darwin’s theory of natural Selection. In return, he urged Darwin to accelerate, and to publish, in case he should be forestalled. ~ Page 112

ALFRED RUSSELL WALACE ~ A LIFE
10 months ago. Edited 10 months ago.
 Ecobird
Ecobird club
Fascinating pictures and information Dinesh. Many thanks

Have a good week
10 months ago.

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