WCP4890

Letter (WCP4890.5290)

[1]

5. Westbourne Grove Terrace, W.1

Tuesday Feb. 9th. 1864

My dear Sir

I have to thank you for your kind attention in sending me your appendix to 3rd. Ed. of "Antiquity of Man"2 which is very interesting as giving the latest information on the subject.

I shall feel much honoured by your noticing any of my papers in your address at [1 word illeg., struck out] Bath.3 I send you herewith a proof of my Geog[raphical]. Paper,4 & also a pretty good abstract of my Ethnographical paper5 [2] and also a map to illustrate them, with the lines dividing the Ethnographical & Zoological Region marked on it.6 My main point is that the Races separated by the black line (of which the typical forms are Malays7 & Papuans8) are distinct from any varieties of man, — as distinct as African for American or Indo European from Mongol; — and just as either of these great races may include widely distinct forms (as Germans & Black Malaban9 races) so the great Polynesian race includes the Papuans & Otaheitans10 (& perhaps even the Australians) as its sub races.

The approximation of the two dividing [3] lines I consider something more than accidental.

I also send a copy of a paper which tries to explain some of the difficulties & objections to this Zoological Division, — especially shown in the distribution of insects.11

When my paper is published at length I shall be happy to send you copies.

Please return the map when done with.

Believe me |Yours very faithfully | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

Sir Charles Lyell.

1
The London residence of ARW's sister Frances ("Fanny") Sims (née Wallace, 1812-1893) and her husband Edward Sims (1829-1960). ARW lived here from early April 1862 to March 1865.
2
Lyell, C. 1863. The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man with Remarks on the Origin of Species by Variation. 3rd ed. London: John Murray. The first and second editions of this work had also been published in 1863, with the third published in November 1863. In the appendix of the third edition, which ran for 31 pages, Lyell provided ʹsome account of discoveries made since April last, and the discussions to which they have given rise, all of them bearing directly on subjects previously treated of in my bookʹ.
3
In a letter to ARW from 8 February 1864 [WCP2029_L1919], Lyell wrote: ʹI should like in my Bath address to introduce two or three sentences, I shall not have room for more as I am limited to one hour, on your observations of the two provinces of animal life, the Indian Archipelago province & the New Guinea one, or both sides of certain straits, & the probable connection of two distinct races of man being also separated or nearly so, by the same boundary lineʹ. This refers to what would come to be known as Wallace’s Line, or the Wallace Line (see endnote 6). On 14 September 1864, Lyell delivered his Presidential Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science at its annual meeting in Bath, on the topic of the glacial epoch and its relation to the antiquity of man, but he did not make any mention of ARWʹs work in the address (Report of the Thirty-Sixth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; held at Bath in September 1864. 1865. London: John Murray [lx-lxxv]).
4
ARW did not publish any papers in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London in 1864, nor in 1865 even.
5
Probably Wallace, A. R. 1865. On the Varieties of Man in the Malay Archipelago. Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London. 3: 196-215. ARW had read this paper on 1 September 1863 at the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and at the meeting of the Ethnological Society of London on 26 January 1864.
6
Here ARW was referring to what would come to be known as Wallace’s Line, or the Wallace Line, an invisible boundary that separates the zoogeographical regions of Asia (to the west of it) and Australasia (to the east). The line runs through the Lombok Strait between the islands of Bali and Lombok, then up between Borneo and Sulawesi, and from there continues northward to separate the Philippine island of Mindanao from the small islands of Sangir and Talaud that lie south of it. The significance of the line is that it identifies a major (though not entirely abrupt) faunal discontinuity: many major groups found to the west of the line do not extend east of it, and vice versa. The deep water of the Lombok Strait between the islands of Bali and Lombok formed a water barrier even when lower sea levels linked the now-separated islands and landmasses on either side, resulting in the isolation of the faunas on either side of the barrier.
7
A member of a people chiefly inhabiting Malaysia, Brunei, and parts of Indonesia, and characteristically speaking the Malay language (OED).
8
Historical term for members of a theoretical racial group including the native people of Papua [New Guinea] and Aborigines (OED).
9
Historical term for natives or inhabitants of the Malabar Coast of south-west India (OED).
10
Historical terms for Tahitians, natives or inhabitants of Tahiti (OED).
11
Probably Wallace, A. R. 1866. On the Phenomena of Variation and Geographical Distribution as Illustrated by the Papilionidae of the Malayan Region. Transactions of the Linnean Society of London. 25(1): 1-71. ARW had presented this paper at the Linnean Society on 17 March 1864, and it was first published separately in 1865.

Editorial information

Status: Edited (but not proofed) transcription [Letter (WCP4890.5290)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by Moody, Liz [2012-12-10] Transcription checked by Catchpole, Caroline [2013-01-15] Transcription checked by Barton, Michael [2020-08-27]

Please cite as “WCP4890,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 3 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP4890