WCP6054

Letter (WCP6054.7004)

[1]1

THE LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON.

Telephone: Regent 1040

All communications should

be addressed to

the Assistant Secretary.

BURLINGTON HOUSE,

PICCADILLY, LONDON, W.1.

17 January 1934.

W. G. Wallace2 Esq[uire].,

Doveshill,

Ensbury Park,

Bournemouth.

Dear Sir,

Professor Poulton3 has asked me to send you the information you asked for in your letter to him dated 15 January. Spruce’s4 M[anu]S[cript]S. are preserved at Kew5, but I would suggest that it would be very appropriate if you could see your way to present the notebook to this Society6, as we have no specimen of Spruce’s handwriting in our Archives. Moreover, I would mention that this Society did Spruce the honour of making him an Associate7.

I am, dear Sir, Yours faithfully, | S. Savage8 [signature]

Assistant Secretary.

Note book referred to in "Notes of a Botanist" Biog[raphica]l.[?] Introduction XXIV Vol II p[age] 1719, 10

From July 1857 onwards the notes are printed in full. Before that date they consist merely of dates & places visited & are of little interest11

Notified Librarian of Kew Gardens of intention to present notebook to Linnean. Jan[uary] 19 193412

1
The letter is typewritten and signed in ink. The page is numbered [WP16/2/31] in pencil in the top RH corner.
2
Wallace, William Greenell (1871-1951) Electrical engineer, second son and third child of ARW.
3
Poulton, Edward Bagnall (1856-1943) British evolutionary biologist and Hope Professor of Zoology at the University of Oxford. He was a friend of ARW and lifelong advocate of natural selection.
4
Spruce, Richard (1817-1893) English botanist and explorer of the Amazon region. In 1849 he followed ARW and Henry Walter Bates to the Amazon Basin, collecting more than 30,000 plant specimens there and in the Andes during the next 14 years.
5
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, founded in 1840, is the world’s largest collection of living plants.
6
The Linnean Society was founded in 1788 for the study and dissemination of taxonomy and natural history, and named in honour of Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), Swedish botanist, physician and zoologist.
7
Richard Spruce was made an associate of the Linnean Society in 1893.
8
Savage, Spencer (no dates found) Librarian and Assistant Secretary of the Linnean Society (see Endnote 6).
9
Spruce, R. (1908) Notes of a botanist on the Amazon & Andes: being records of travel on the Amazon and its tributaries, the Trombetas, Rio Negro, Uaupés, Casiquiari, Pacimoni, Huallaga, and Pastasa; as also to the cataracts of the Orinoco, along the eastern side of the Andes of Peru and Ecuador, and the shores of the Pacific, during the years 1849-1864, 2 vols. London, Macmillan. (Edited and condensed by A. R. Wallace).
10
On page 171 of Notes of a botanist (see Endnote 9) Volume II Chapter XIX Botanical excursions and ascents in the Ecuadorean Andes (July 1, 1857-December 31, 1858), ARW as editor writes: "During the year and a half comprised in this chapter there is nothing in the shape of a journal, but the letters to his friends, Messrs. Teasdale, Bentham, and Sir William Hooker, furnish materials for a fairly complete account of his life and work during this period". Annotation in pencil in hand of recipient.
11
ARW provides a List of Botanical Excursions at the beginning of Chapter XIX and successive chapters in Volume II of Notes of a botanist (see Endnote 9) in the absence of a journal record by Spruce, "to enable the reader to understand the references he makes in the letters to the places he has visited". Annotation in pencil in hand of recipient.
12
Annotation in ink in hand of recipient.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP6054.7004)]

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

Revision history

Transcribed by O'Dell, Sandra [2018-08-15]

Please cite as “WCP6054,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 19 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP6054