WCP6406

Letter (WCP6406.7405)

[1]1

ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY,

KENSINGTON GORE,

LONDON

S.W.7

6th. Feb[ruar]y. 1934.

Dear Sir,

I am sorry to say I have not been able to find among the many places and geographical features named Wallace that any one[?] of them is called after your celebrated father, except of course the well-known Wallace’s Line2 which you have mentioned. In fact in only very few cases is the origin of the name given.

I looked up the strait between Yamdena and Larat3 in the Admiralty Pilot and there it is called Wallace Channel and is described as a narrow channel only 6 feet deep at low water. Nothing is said about how it came to be named Wallace[.]

Yours faithfully | F. Allen4 [signature]

Map Curator R[oyal]. G[eographical]. S[ociety].5

W. G. Wallace6 E[s]q[uire].

1
The page is numbered [WP16/1/68] in pencil in the top RH corner
2
The Wallace Line or Wallace's Line is a faunal boundary line drawn in 1859 by ARW after his travels in the East Indies. West of the line are found organisms related to Asiatic species; to the east, a mixture of species of Asian and Australian origin is present. The line runs through Indonesia between Borneo and Sulawesi (Celebes) and through the Lombok Strait between Bali and Lombok.
3
Larat is the northernmost of the Tanimbar Islands, in the Maluku Province of Indonesia. The town of Larat lies opposite the town of Lelingluang on the much larger Yamdena Island, across a narrow strait.
4
Allen, Fawcett (dates unknown) Map Curator, the Royal Geographical Society, London.
5
London-based learned society and professional body for geography and geographers, founded in 1830 under the name Geographical Society of London. It was granted its Royal Charter under Queen Victoria in 1859.
6
Wallace, William Greenell (1871-1951) Electrical engineer, second son and third child of ARW.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP6406.7405)]

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 “WCP6406,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 19 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP6406