WCP471

[1]¹

Corinda²

N^[ea]r. Brisbane

in fact 7 miles due west thereof

17 Feb[ruary]. 1910.

Dear D^r. Wallace,³

I'll promise to try not to bore you with a long letter this time, as I fear you must be suffering from determination[?] of Skertchly to the brain [one word illeg.] I can[']t sleep for those diprotodontoid⁴ impossibilities that go hopping about within coo-ee of my ink-pot pretending they are placental Eutherian rodents⁵ instead of metatherian⁶ wallabies, and illustrating that you can have parallel development every time they do leap-frog over a stump. I've never killed one: I hate killing things (except Socialists⁷), but you have made me see blood, and I feel inclined to go scalping. Why couldn't you have left them alone with their skins on. What did I care about their stage machinery? They had hidden it out of sight, and now you tell me I mustn't believe in the transformation scene⁸because, forsooth, you have seen Queen Mab⁹ drink porter out of pewter¹⁰. The play's the thing,¹¹Sir, and à bas¹² the carpenter. So you've driven me to write

On the Inwardness[?] of Things in General and Marsupials in Particular.

I love to draw wisdom from the mouths of babes and sucklings. Now there is a pure S[outh] Kensington bred (and bread and buttered) babe who, because he pays income tax under the name of G. B. Howes,¹³ imagines imagines himself a live man, whereas he is only a nomenclature monger, and would expire if he had to say anything shorter than posterior zygapophysis.¹⁴Slice him with a scalpel and he bleeds formalin, stimulate his hypoglossus¹⁵ and he will shriek formulae. His grasp of the fitness of things and his innate appreciation of the perspective of facts will shine radiantly clear from the following passage from his B[ritish]. Association]. address to the Belfast meeting's Zoology section¹⁶:-

"The numerical reduction of the basal (protopoditic) segments (in Crustacea) to two, with the assumption of a nonappendicular relationship of the gills is due to coalescence

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2¹⁷

of parts, with or without suppression. The evidence for this epoch-making conclusion"¹⁸&c. &c. O! ye lobsters and shrimps! Epoch making!! Now if I can find sap in this sort of stuff surely there is hope even for the vilest sinner — that's ME!!!

Speaking of the allantoic¹⁹ placenta in one of four polyprots²⁰he reminds us that "in the formation of the placenta of the rabbit and a bat there is realised a provisional vitelline stage", and continues "it is tempting to suggest that the evidence for the direct relationship of the two mammalian sub-classes (Marsupialia & Placentalia) overlaps, (there being a placental marsupial on the one hand, a marsupial placental on the other), much as we have come to regard Archaeopteryx²¹ as an avian reptile, the Odontornithes²² as reptilian birds".²³

As to the corpus callosum²⁴ (whose presence he says can only be really determined by means of chrome silver, methylene blue & other [1 word illeg. and deleted] ^messes though Owen²⁵ knew all about it before the blue bag was promoted to the biologists microtome²⁶) they ^he points out that the Elephant Shrew, an insectivore, "realises the marsupial state".²⁷

As to change of structure &c. he cites Huxley²⁸on the brains of Lemurs, "its structural simplicity in the so-called lower lemurs is due to retrogressive change, in some species proved to be ontogenetic, and that the Tarsier, recently claimed to be an insectivore, is a lemur of the lemurs".²⁹

Now surely here's enough internal change³⁰ to set [1 word illeg. and deleted] ^me up in business. Here's our rabbit pest turning up trumps for us and proving to be a 'marsupial placental". Here's an insectivore turning out to be a lemur! And the tubular mammary gland of the Monotremes³¹ turns out to be common to all mammals!!! And Howes further says the doubly ossified condition of the coracoid³² in Monotremes is 'always present' in mammals,³³ whereas it was till lately one of the geniune Monotreme specialities !!!! So much for S[outh] Kensington — Howe's that for S.B.J.S³⁴?

As if this isn[']t cruel enough, allow me to hoist you on something perilously like your own petard.³⁵ I have turned this up in Gregory (late Wallace's) "Australasia", 1906, p. 124.³⁶ after I had written my paper.

"This non-placentic condition of the marsupials is not an archaic survival: for Hill³⁷ of Sydney has shown that the bandicoots (Perameles) have a rudimentary placenta.

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3^{38, 39}

('quotation cont^[inue]d).

⁴⁰"Moreover, only one or two of the teeth have milk teeth, which are shed before the growth of the adult teeth. These facts indicate that some of the characters in living marsupials, which once appeared most primitive, are due to degeneration from ancestors that were more nearly allied to higher mammals".

Hurrah! hurrah! I shan[']t be deed[?] alone! I'll have to break my stick of brimstone in bits and share it with an anatomist and a geologist!!! I.I, I.⁴¹ haven[']t said much more than that. Only it[']s not de-generation but re-generation, even if it isn[']t creation! Where did I get this brilliant idea, this true brilliant which you suspect to be paste⁴²? How did I get it? Because I am Marsupial myself!! My dreams are the whisperings of My Lady Nicotine, and I don[']t smoke cigars (save on ceremony) but draw my inspiration from My Pouch!! Solanceae⁴³ for ever! Who need look kanga-rue-ful after this? Bless the rabbits, bless the bats, bless the dear little Tarsius,⁴⁴ which like me, wears spectacles. Tarsius can bite: it is a dull, grinding bruisy pain as I can testify. "what big eyes you've got'! "My word"! [this is the strongest Australian oath] Tarsius is an awful sight when you wake up and find his gig-lamps⁴⁵ staring at you from the bed-post! Tarsius is the true night-mare. Chivy him round a house what time graveyards and geologists yawn, and tell me if he isn[']t spry! Degenerate! Not a d — bit of it. Try and pick him up when he is not dispozed[sic] and see who's the favoured one in the struggle for existence. God bless thee, little Tarsius, I didn[']t know half your merits when you used to turn me out of bed when I was the wild man of Borneo.⁴⁶ Accept my apologies oh "lemur of lemurs".

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4⁴⁷

I see rapid change everywhere. I see rocks formed rapidly, and quite unlike our dear lost Lyell's⁴⁸ tame[?] forces. [What a man Lyell was! I looked on him as the perfectest gentleman I ever knew! I remember writing when Goschen⁴⁹ was made First Lord of the Admiralty

"Geologists no more need strive

At deep conclusions to arrive

Concerning what the forces be

That raise the land above the sea.

Yes: Murchison⁵⁰ must cede his shocks

Lyell his gently upheaved socks,

^{Von Buch51 and Darwin52 ghastly smile}

^{On Norway's coast and Keeling's Isle,51}

Since Gladstone's⁵² latest brilliant notion[?]

Has made the sea the Land of Goschen!"

Lyell laughed. Murchison grinned. I sent it to Punch⁵³ who said it wasn[']t funny. But there Punch isn[']t a humerous[sic] paper. And so my epigram lay half a century dead, till you galvanised it to kick again: I suppose my poetry died about the same time. Oliver Wendell Holmes⁵⁴ once asked me to contribute verse [? poesy] to the Atlantic Monthly.⁵⁵Happily I reremembered what happened to the first Atlantic cable⁵⁶ when they tried Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy⁵⁷ on it: it couldn[']t stand the strain: it broke. So the Atlantic was kept pure, and O.W.H. lived for many years after. I tried one poem on the Roy[al]. Sch[ool]. [of] Mines Mag[azine]⁵⁸. — the first number[?].

It began something like this

Poesy reigned a gentle queen

Five decades since, or scarce so long,

But only Science now is seen,

Prague[?] has stifled modest song.

The [2 words deleted] ^blazing Sun to modern ken[?]

Is not a light to guide and cheer

But merely blazing ^burning hydrogen

That flames around his photosphere⁵⁹

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5^60,61

The moonbeams must no more be chill,

Not chastely now fair Luna shines,

We know that heat pervades her still

And find she shows absorption lines

and so forth. The Mag[azine]. came to an end promptly. But years after a friend sent me a cutting from a N[ew]. S[outh]. W[ales]. paper saying "I think this'll suit you. It's just what I could imagine you writing". It was my poem, with somebody else's name and address and date to it. He's dead, too, I hope, rank man. You say I am poet by nature. Maybe in a little way, for the scientific imagination (not the fact-peddling that goes as such) seems to me exactly the same as the bard's frenzy. I see the things I write about: see our Opal Sea lapping its shores, see the clouds in serried ranks, black friars, white friars and friars of order grey, marshall themselves along the Australian heights and fall as ⁱⁿ rain upon these beautiful isles of the sea. When I can[']t see the landscape I know it isn[']t real. The Opal Sea is real, therefore it is true! My placental-marsupials I think are true too. But I haven[']t seen them yet. I have only heard them in the forests. They are there and I shall, God willing, someday drop across a 'mob' of them — there are no 'herds' in Australia. This gift of visualising (bless thee Galton for that word⁶²) is to me a priceless joy. My dreamland is my real land. I used to dread lest as I grew old the power of enjoyment in nature's ways might grow dull. I don[']t think it has. When I get into new real country after a spell of town (which I hate) I get drunk, I go barsark[sic], I could yell with delight, and the end of a journey is always a grey day. If ever the day ^time comes when I can read Andersen's 'Little Fir Tree"⁶³ without a sob, may the kind mining gnomes bear me away and bury me deep among the trilobites.⁶⁴

See how I ramble! I just note all this is part of a parenthesis! But it is so delightful to talk to you. I have been talking to you these 25 years past: only you were spared the chatter. Do I love gardening? Well for three years I wrote as "Daun Utan[?]" in the Hort[icultural]. Journ[al]: [of] Aust[ralia]. and only recently gave it up as the dew dries on my "forest leaves" if I have to write to order: I'm not a sausage machine. I haven[']t a spare copy, but I[']m going to copy out a little article on my "Dream Gardens"⁶⁵ which I wrote, in pencil, lying helpless with lumbago. Do please love it a little, for it is a bit of me! Here ends the parenthesis!!]

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6⁶⁶

To go back to the top of p[age]. 4. and go straight on — if I can — I loathe the straight path, give me the lightening[']s zig-zag. Well I see rapid change everywhere. I see for instance the 25,000 feet of torrent-wrung rubble piled tumultuously all along Himalaya's flanks. I see rapid change in life when par example the Ammonites⁶⁷ change in the Lias⁶⁸ suddenly where the division line is not an unconformity but a continuity. The division line is not the thickness of a visiting card — it was complete, sudden change, exit Ammonites A, enter Ammonites B. That[']s all. Of course I see the slow things too. But we have been so long travelling upon these idlers that we have lost sight of the hustlers, and they are many and potent. There was time enough, and ten minutes for lunch too, and plenty to spare from say Miocene⁶⁹ times for any mammal to make up its mind as to the relative advantages of perambulations and apron strings. All geology shows there are outbursts of species making[?] regular Welsh revivals of frenzy, and after running riot the orders [1 word deleted] ^get into order and the rash species that were too bulky or too fantastic or too finnicky simply pegged out and left the sensible folk to carry on the business. Lingula⁷⁰ &Co simply put their hands in their trouser pockets a long time ago, and dawdled along the ages. They survive as warnings not as examples. It[']s pretty big foolishness to rely too much on the struggle for existence and the favoured races. Things like Lingula and Amphioxus⁷¹have dawdled on not caring a d[amn]. about struggles and favourites and they've done just as well as the poor brutes that have [1 word deleted] ^had all the hard work of evoluting. This is what you good folk don[']t see. If change was good for the kin of Lingula & Amphioxus it was good for them too. If the battle raged so strong you couldn[']t see the sun for arrows, all the fellows that hadn[']t chainmail would be skewered, the arrows would pick every Harold's eye out.⁷² And yet here's friend L[igula] and comrade A[mphioxus] coming thro'[ugh] it literally as naked as they were born. Why? Simply because they were never in the fight. Sculan[?] had no terrors because they were not there. Survivals[?] have never yet been properly appreciated. Someday I'll give the scamps a leg up.

Len Green⁷³ had sent back the map and I'll copy his notes⁷⁴ & try and post it this mail. The map of Australia I am doing for you isn[']t finished for I am very busy and have two presidential addresses to deliver shortly. By the way if it is not asking too much, would you kindly write a few words of congratulations to 1⁷⁵ The Institute of Opthalmic Opticians,⁷⁶ and 27⁷⁷to the Field Naturalists' Club.⁷⁸ They would indeed be proud.

Give our very kindest regards to "Willie & Violet"⁷⁹ [I am sending the latter a set of our Gov[ernment].[?] Picture cards] and accept a great deal of the same sincere gratitude

Yours faithfully | Sydney B. J. Skertchly⁸⁰ [signature] | Exile, in partibus.⁸¹