Alfred Russel Wallace: The Wandering Mind
Posted: Sunday, January 29, 2012
by Jack H. Schick
Naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), was sunburned, thirsty and starting to seriously worry about his own survival; but, he couldn't help feeling disappointed and depressed over the loss of his entire collection and most of his journals. When, on August 9, 1852, 28 days out of Brazil on its way to England, the brig Helen caught fire and was abandoned, Wallace desperately tried to salvage some of the biological specimens he'd spent four years collecting along the Amazon, but there was not room for them in the lifeboat. After a week adrift in an open boat in the middle of the Atlantic, he'd become more focused on his immediate plight, but his mind still occasionally drifted to thoughts of his scientific and financial loss. Fortunately, he'd purchased insurance, but he first had to be rescued before that foresight had any relevance.
Wallace spent the next year and a half in London living off the insurance payment he received for his lost collection, and by selling specimens he'd sent home in the months preceding his departure from Brazil. Despite having lost most of his notes he was able to write six academic papers based on his studies in South America, among them "On the Monkeys of the Amazon." He also wrote two books: Travels on the Amazon and Palm Trees of the Amazon and Their Uses. More importantly, during this time Wallace made ‘connections' with other British naturalists, including one who, in the future, he would inspire, apotheosize and compete with--Charles Darwin.
Wallace was not a ‘trained' naturalist. The seventh of nine children, he was born in Wales to ‘commoner' English parents. His family suffered progressive financial setbacks and he was required to drop out of Hertford Grammar School at age 13. He moved to London, and, for a short time, worked for his brother, John, as an apprentice builder. While there, he visited the library and attended lectures at the London Mechanics Institute, where he was introduced to the ‘radical' political ideas of Robert Owen and Thomas Paine. In 1837, Wallace was taken on by his oldest brother, William, and served as an apprentice surveyor for the next six years.
The Wallace brothers worked on survey projects throughout western England and Wales, but, by 1843, the business had dramatically declined due to economic conditions. At 20, Alfred found himself unemployed for a period of time. Eventually, due to his recognized high intelligence, he was hired as a master at the Collegiate School in Leicester to teach drawing, mapmaking and surveying. While there Wallace spent a lot of time in the library broadening his education. One evening while he was there he met entomologist Henry Bates. Though only 19, Bates had already published an article on beetles in a scientific journal. The two became good friends and Bates sparked in Wallace an interest in collecting insects.
William Wallace died in 1845. Alfred quit his teaching job, enlisted the help of his brother John, and assumed control of the surveying firm. They were not successful and, within a few months, Alfred found work as a civil engineer doing surveys on a railway project. He maintained his friendship with Bates and his outdoor work in the countryside allowed him to continue his new interest in collecting insects, which quickly developed into a passion. After the railroad project was completed, he and brother John formed another architecture and civil engineering firm.
While the Wallace brothers were working on the design for a building at the Mechanic's Institute of Neath, the institute's founder, William Jevons was impressed with Alfred's skill, deportment, and diverse areas of interest and knowledge and asked him to give lectures on science and engineering. At age 23, Wallace found his financial condition substantially improved and purchased a cottage for himself and his family near Neath. During this period he took advantage of the institute's facilities and read avidly, including the works of geologist, Charles Lyell, speculative theorist, Robert Chambers and evolution proponent, Charles Darwin.
Wallace was inspired by the ‘adventures' reported in the chronicles of naturalists like Darwin and Alexander von Humboldt and developed a desire to travel "in the name of science" himself. He and Bates decided to go on a bug collecting expedition to the Amazon rainforest. They pooled their savings and planned to pay for expenses by sending specimens back to an agent in London, who would sell them. In preparation, they observed as many collections of South American plants and animals as they could find in Britain. They took orders and formed a specimen "want list" from the requests of museums and collectors. The two set sail from Liverpool in April, 1848, and arrived in Brazil by the end of May.
Alfred Russel WallaceAfter his productive eighteen month stay in England, Wallace set out on another collecting expedition in 1854, this time to the East Indies (Malaysia and Indonesia). He was there for eight years. His acquisition of 125,660 species was unprecedented. It included 310 mammals, 100 reptiles, 83,000 beetles, 13,000 other insects, 8,000 birds, 13,000 butterflies and 7,500 shells. Over 1,000 were never-before-seen species. One of the better known ‘new' animals he described was Rhacophorus nigropalmatus, popularly known as Wallace's flying frog. During his investigations, Wallace noticed that there was a distinct boundary line between types of animals that ran through the archipelago. He defined and deliniated it, and it would eventually be named for him.
Wallace was unique among the early 19th Century ‘traveling naturalists.' Due to his keen mind and his extensive reading, especially of Chambers, Darwin and Lamark, he already believed in transmutation of species (changing of one species into another--which was, basically, evolution). Wallace was also a promoter of, and often called the "father of biogeography," which is the idea that geographic boundaries, rather than climatic zones caused the variation in plant and animal types around the world. The concept was first articulated by Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), then Phillip Lutley Sclater (1829-1913). In the "Monkeys of the Amazon" paper, Wallace asked: "Are very closely allied species ever separated by a wide interval of country?" In the East Indies, Wallace was specifically looking for evidence to support these two theories, and found it.
In February, 1855, while collecting specimens at Sarawak on the island of Borneo, Wallace wrote the paper "On the Law Which has Regulated the Introduction of Species," in which he stated: "Every species has come into existence coincident both in space and time with closely allied species." The statement became known as the "Sarawak Law." Wallace's argument that new species emerged from existing populations that had become geographically isolated was supported by the living and fossil evidence he'd observed in the East Indies. The "Law" rattled minds throughout the scientific world. Though an incomplete theory, the paper helped to convert Charles Lyell to a believer in evolution. It was resoundingly supported by evolutionary zoologist Edward Blyth, and it prodded Charles Darwin out of his lethargic procrastination to again begin working on his "big book" which would become Origin of Species.
The Flying Frog (drawn by Wallace)Wallace suffered greatly while in Indonesia. He'd been frightened by headhunters on the island of Lombok, his arms and legs were badly infected by leaches and biting insects, he found a ten foot snake in the ceiling of his hut on Ambon, he suffered chronic dysentery and he repeatedly contracted cases of malaria. At the end of February, 1858, Wallace was in a grass hut on the island of Ternate afflicted with a particularly nasty bout of malaria. As he ‘sat out' the attack, pondering and perspiring, writing and agonizing, he had a fever-induced revelation that would change scientific thinking forever.
In his ailing state he continued to wonder what it was that caused new species to emerge from specialized varieties while other varieties died out. A vision struck him. He later wrote:
"There suddenly flashed upon me the idea of the survival of the fittest-that individuals removed (extinct)…must be…inferior to those that survived…[T]he variations continually occurring in every fresh generation of animals or plants, and the changes of climate, of food, of enemies always in progress, the whole method of specific modification became clear to me, and in the two hours of my fit I had thought the main points of the theory."
Wallace expounded on his theory in the article "On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely From the Original Type," which he sent to Darwin, asking him to send it on to Charles Lyell to be considered for publication. Darwin said that Wallace's essay was "a bolt from the blue." For years, he had been struggling to envision a mechanism that would explain how evolution and the emergence of new species occurred. Wallace's references to "the struggle for existence" and "survival of the fittest," appeared to be the keys to the mystery and abruptly opened Darwin 's eyes to the answer.
Darwin immediately sent Wallace's essay on to Lyell saying: "he could not have made a better short abstract! Even his terms now stand as heads of my chapters…." Lyell and Joseph Hooker recognized the significance of Wallace's new theory. They issued it in a joint publication which included unprinted writings by Darwin. The 'paper' highlighted, Darwin's contribution, the respected scientist and peer, and minimized up-start, commoner Wallace's. In the announcement to the Linnean Scocity on July 1, 1858, that the explanation for the science of evolution had been found, Darwin basically stole the credit, claiming that he'd had the same ideas as Wallace did a few days before the letter containing Wallace's theory arrived, but had failed to publish it. He did admitted that some credit was due to Wallace. Having been prompted by Wallace's revelations to complete his own book, Darwin published Origin of Species the following year (1859).
Wallace's Ecological Zones
Regardles of Darwin claiming his theory and disagreeing with him on many points, particularly on the Ascent of Man, Wallace became one of Darwin 's staunchest defenders. The two continued to correspond for the rest of their lives. Of ‘lowly birth' in Victorian England, Wallace did not receive knighthood as did Darwin, Lyell, Hooker and others, but he did become a member of the Order of Merit. In financial trouble most of his later life, Wallace was helped by Darwin to secure a modest government pension that, along with income from his writings, allowed him to live reasonably. His chronicle of the Indonesian adventure, The Malay Archipelago, was by far the most popular of the 19th Century journal/travelogs. Writer Joseph Conrad claimed that he always had a copy of it at his bedside and it was a source for many of his novels, including Lord Jim.
Other scientific contributions of Alfred Russel Wallace include:
The Wallace Line: While in Indonesia Wallace noticed a dramatic difference between life forms on either side of a specific boundary line. On one side the animals and plants were similar to those found on Australia, on the other, to those found in Southeast Asia. He speculated that, at one time the two geographic zones had been separated by a greater distance. His studies provided biological evidence used to support the theory of continental drift. The Wallace Line follows the boundary of tectonic plates.
Warning Coloration: Darwin wondered why certain color schemes in animals had developed. He attributed it to ‘sexual selection.' Wallace disagreed, suggesting that conspicuous color schemes were warnings to predators and hence could have developed through natural selection. He explained that the most brightly colored butterflies seem to be unpalatable to birds. Wallace was correct.
The Wallace Effect: Wallace postulated: when two varieties of a species become isolated from each other, they adapt to the local environment. The two varieties become unable to mate with each other (reproductive isolation occurs), as the mating would produce hybrids who were less "fit" to survive than the parents. The validity of the ‘effect' had been reinforced my modern mathematical models.
Biogeography and Ecology: Wallace compiled data from all branches of science to divide the Earth into six zoological zones that are still recognized today. Elevation, glacier periods, land bridges, ocean currents and depths were all considered in ‘drawing' the boundaries of these ecological areas.
Environmentalism: In the book Tropical Nature and Other Essays (1878), Wallace warned of the dangers of deforestation and soil erosion. He warned that human actions, like clearing jungle for coffee cultivation could cause adverse climatic and ecological changes. He warned of the danger of invasive species and damage to the complex ecosystems.
Flat Earth Wager: Due to bad investments, by 1870, Wallace was experiencing financial difficulties. He accepted a 500 pound bet by Flat Earth proponent John Hampdon to design an experiment that proved the curvature of a body of water. Wallace set up two objects and a telescope the same distance above the water on a six mile section of a canal. When the objects appeared to be at different elevations he considered the bet won, but had to take Hampdon to court to collect the money.
Martian Canals: In 1907 Wallace wrote a short book, Is Mars Habitable?, to dispute Percival Lowell's claim that there were canals built on Mars by intelligent beings. He pointed out that spectroscopic analysis showed no water vapor in the Martian atmosphere, that the surface temperature Lowell assumed was greatly over estimated and that the low atmospheric pressure made the presence of liquid water impossible.
Alfred Russel WallaceWallace's scientific standing was diminished among contemporaries by his belief in spiritualism, his acceptance of phrenology (a pseudo-science based on measurements of the skull), and his enthusiasm for mesmerism. He also inspired detractors by his belief that evolution was teleogical (purpose driven), and anthropocentric (human centered). He believed that Man was unique in the Universe and that evolution had the divine purpose of creating the Human spiritual, conscious being.
Wallace was also a social activist. He advocated doing away with wealthy landowners, believing that all land should be owned by the state and leased to people who would be required to do with it what would benefit the largest number of people. He was against free trade policies that he believed had a negative impact on the working class. He was an avowed socialist. He wrote articles supporting women's suffrage and warning against the wastefulness of militarism. Wallace was always suspicious of authority and advocated against the practice of manditory immunization against small pox. All of which were contrary in accepted British society.
Alfred Russel Wallace died on November 7, 1913 . The NY Times called him "the last of the giants belonging to that wonderful group of intellectuals…whose daring investigations revolutionized and evolutionized the thought of the century." Another report said: "No apology need be made for the few literary or scientific follies of the author of that great book on the "Malay Archipelago." He was buried in a small cemetery at Broadstone, Dorset, and remains one of the greatest minds of the 19th Century.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)Completely well done. So much work, so thorough. I think you have surpassed your regular self.It took some work, yes. Thanks, as always. There was a lot more to say, but it's already over 2,500 words.
Jack,
I'm really enjoying your pieces that tell the stories of historical events and people. Extremely well done! You weave the facts and information inside your narrative so seamlessly they become unforgettable. Really wonderful pieces.Thanks so much! I actually enjoy doing them
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