![]() ![]() In 1859, he laid down a landmark in the field of biogeography, tracing a line that delineates the boundaries of Southeast Asian and Australian fauna: the Wallace Line. If it hadn’t been for Wallace interrupting Darwin, he’d have carried on and written this big book which probably no one would have read.” As it is, Darwin published the book in November 1859, shaking the world of religion and shaping the world of science.Īnd Wallace? He continued his travels. ![]() “That book became On the Origin of Species. “Then everyone said, ‘Gosh, this is really interesting, can you tell us about your theory? We can’t wait for this big book to be finished,’” Wyhe said. “And the answer was clearly, that on the whole, the best fitted live.” Natural selection was, Wallace realised in a flash, the mechanism by which species evolved and came to be. “Vaguely thinking over the enormous and constant destruction which this implied, it occurred to me to ask the question, why do some die and some live?” he later wrote. Sickness – and perhaps with it the prospect of his own extinction – concentrated his mind. There were orangutans, which perhaps had their own ancestors, like chimpanzees and gorillas Wallace had tended a baby as a pet. There was the flying frog, which demonstrated how toes already adapted for swimming and climbing could be used to soar through the air. Far from home, freezing or sweltering in the shadow of the volcano, quite likely in fear for his life, Wallace’s mind turned to Thomas Malthus, the Georgian-era intellectual who had argued that nature kept human populations down by disease, famine, war and accidents – and realised a similar logic could apply to animal species.ĭuring his travels through what is today mostly Indonesia, Wallace had seen thousands of thought-provoking creatures. Cold sweats alternated with hot fits, and Wallace had to lie down for hours at a time, with nothing to do but think. Wallace had barely moved in to his shady house with its cool, freshwater well when he fell sick, most likely with malaria. Enriched by this precious traffic, the sultans of Ternate laid claim to an empire that stretched as far as the Philippines and Papua – and engaged in vicious rivalry with the sultans of equally tiny Tidore. ![]() For millennia, cloves had grown only on Ternate, Tidore and a handful of nearby islands – and for more than 3,000 years they’d crossed continents in an elaborate web of barter and trade, gaining value with each transaction. Travelling thousands of miles by steamer, sailing ships and native boats, on horseback and on foot, he and his assistants had killed, skinned or pinned tens of thousands of specimens, from orangutans to birds of paradise to the sloth-like marsupial known as the cuscus, not to mention thousands of species of beetle.īy then, Ternate’s glory days were over, swept away by colonisation. The Earl of Cranbook is an expert in the environmental biology of the Malaysian region, and has a special interest in the life and career of Alfred Russel Wallace.When 35-year-old Alfred Russel Wallace arrived in Ternate in January 1858, he’d been exploring the vast and sprawling mass of islands he called the Malay Archipelago for almost four years. Discursive, captivating, occasionally offensive, but always wonderfully descriptive, it remains one of the most extensive works of natural history ever compiled. First published in 1869, The Malay Archipelago provided some of the initial evidence for the modern theory of evolution. Colourful personal anecdotes based on experiences during his travels also pepper the text. ![]() In addition, he includes numerous observations on the people, their languages, and ways of living and social organization, as well as geological insights into the nature and activity of volcanoes and the destructive force of nature. An intrepid explorer who earned his living by collecting bird skins, Wallace also catalogued the vast number of plant and animal species that inhabit this unique geographical area. “The Malay Archipelago” is a work of astounding breadth and originality that chronicles the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace’s scientific exploration of Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and New Guinea between 18. The Malay Archipelago Alfred Russel Wallace ![]()
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