WCP743

Letter (WCP743.915)

[1]1

Broadstone, <Wimborne> [MS damaged]

Oct[ob]er 12th <1905>2 [MS damaged]

My dear Fred3

I received your long <and> [MS damaged] interesting account of your 2nd <expedition> [MS damaged] to Tucuche4 (unfinished) a week back, and am <glad> [MS damaged] you succeeded, though the labour <and> [MS damaged] had little reward. After this experience I hope you will be <satisfied> [MS damaged] that mountain tops are not the <place for> [MS damaged] a collection! I grudge the loss of [MS damaged] over work, the risk of serious <illness> [MS damaged] such undertakings, as you are <obliged> [MS damaged] to undergo from want of means to <obtain> [MS damaged] adequate assistance. Had you <spent> [MS damaged] a fortnight at the foot of the [MS damaged] slope where you saw that grand [MS damaged] butterfly, you would have really [MS damaged] the insect fauna of the region, [MS damaged] your repeated marches with [MS damaged] load give you no <information> [MS damaged] you do not say where <the> [MS damaged] the mountain [MS damaged] [2] [MS damaged] starts from, and if you know [MS damaged] why you did not follow it all the [MS damaged] Your ulcers are no doubt due [MS damaged] insufficient nutritious food.

[MS damaged] <suffered> in the same way, and always [MS damaged] <from> the same cause — Pray take more [MS damaged] for the "flesh-pots" — they are essential [MS damaged] health.

The little plant abundant on the northern [MS damaged] of Tucuche, & that grew in a garden in [MS damaged] <Liverpool!,> is undoubtedly a Bagonia[?]5. The [MS damaged] <whole> family is characterised by the <unsymmetrical> [sic] leaves —sometimes largely [MS damaged] <sometimes> slightly so. It must have been [MS damaged] a pot & kept in the house in winter, [MS damaged] none are hardy [MS damaged] you enclosed the mounted mosses [MS damaged] sent, with Mr. Mitten’s6 remarks are [MS damaged] to show you that they are [MS damaged] He got better specimens he [MS damaged] the little bundle you sent [MS damaged] you will find [3] hepaticae7 growing in the leaves of <many> [MS damaged] and intermingled with mosses which will also be of interesting. By [MS damaged] a little whenever you find them and merely [MS damaged] them up in a bit of paper or putting <them> [MS damaged] in an old envelope you will be able to [MS damaged] good many without much trouble. (There are usually plenty of mosses growing among the roots of [MS damaged].

I am longing to hear your first <impressions> [MS damaged] & successes in Santa Catalina.8 You will [MS damaged] there a chance, I hope, to get all the [MS damaged] worth collecting, and also as there [MS damaged] campos9 with far off to test them for [MS damaged] But of course at first the new road [MS damaged] the place. I only hope it will at least [MS damaged] equal to any similar place on the Sadong10 <River> [MS damaged] in Borneo! I hope there will be <some> [MS damaged] Indians and children about who [MS damaged] do some collecting for you, <especially> [MS damaged] such things as land shells, [MS damaged] beetles, and humming-birds [MS damaged] the blow-pipe, or blunt [MS damaged] patience I [MS damaged] [4]11 [MS damaged] if yet.

[MS damaged] <What> a character Mrs. Paradas12 was! I am [MS damaged] you will not want have to stay there long. [MS damaged] <I have just bought a copy of Reclus’13 Universal Geography14 [MS damaged] volumes. He was out in Columbia [sic] & Venezuela [MS damaged] <himself> and ascended "Santa Marta".15 He says [MS damaged] <there> are the marvellous tropical forests with their [MS damaged] of lianas and parasites, intermingled in greater [MS damaged] than in the Orinoco delta, around the [MS damaged] <Bay> of Maracaibo,16 and at the foot of the Sierra <Merida>"17

[MS damaged] <the> South East and Southwest shores of Maracaibo [MS damaged] numerous streams from two branches of [MS damaged] Andes, and I think, after a year at S[an]ta. Catalina [MS damaged] <would> probably find no more promising ground [MS damaged] that district, which I believe is well peopled [MS damaged] there are sure to be Americans & English [MS damaged] I never heard of any collector going [MS damaged] it seems much more promising than the [MS damaged] <Santa> Martha [sic] which has been worked & [MS damaged] [re]sult of access & also arid on the S[outh]. side [MS damaged] opportunity to get information [MS damaged] I should not wonder but it [MS damaged] island"!

[Page(s) including valediction missing]

1
This letter has been damaged, perhaps by fire, causing some loss of text at the outer edge and top and bottom corners of the pages, but has been repaired and mounted on plain paper. The repository reference number "54" appears here.
2
Year inferred from sequence of correspondence between ARW and Birch in 1905.
3
Birch, Frederick R. ("Fred") (1877-?). Born in Wavertree, Liverpool, he apparently met ARW some time in the 1897. He set off on a largely unsuccessful expedition to Trinidad in 1904 and travelled to New Hampshire in 1906. In 1907 he emigrated with his wife to Brazil, where he worked as a professional collector of natural history specimens. They returned to England in 1913.
4
El Tucuche (936 m) is the second highest peak in Trinidad’s northern range.
5
Begonia is a genus of perennial flowering plants in the family Begoniaceae.
6
Mitten, William (1819-1906) English pharmaceutical chemist and authority on bryophytes (mosses and liverworts). (Also ARW’s father-in-law).
7
Class Hepaticae comprises the liverworts, plants no more 1 cm tall, which can be flat and ribbon-shaped or leafy.
8
Santa Catalina is located in the Delta Amacuro state of Venezuela (Orinoco delta).
9
Brazilian grasslands.
10
River in north-west Borneo.
11
The stamp of the B[ritish] M[useum] N[atural] H[istory] Entomology Library appears here at the head of the page and the reference number "418748" at the foot.
12
Not identified.
13
Reclus Élisée (1830-1905) (also known as Jacques Élisée Reclus). French geographer, writer and anarchist. He produced his 19-volume masterwork La Nouvelle Géographie universelle, la terre et les hommes "Universal Geography", over a period of nearly 20 years (1875-1894) (see Endnote 13).
14
Reclus, E. (1886?-98) The Earth and its inhabitants. The Universal Geography Ed. E. G. Ravenstein, New York, D. Appleton & Co. 19 vols.
15
Santa Marta is located in the bay of Santa Marta along the Caribbean Sea in the province of Magdalena, Colombia.
16
The Bay of Maracaibo is a large brackish bay, connected to the Gulf of Venezuela by the Tablazo Strait which is only 5.5 km wide. It is therefore sometimes considered a lake rather than a bay or lagoon.
17
The Sierra Nevada de Mérida is the highest mountain range in the largest massif in Venezuela, the Cordillera de Mérida, which in turn is part of the northern extent of the Andes.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP743.915)]

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 “WCP743,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 9 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP743