All my private collection of insects and birds since I left Para was with me, and comprised hundreds of new and beautiful species, which would have rendered (I had fondly hoped) my cabinet, as far as regards American species, one of the finest in Europe. But even all this might have gone with little regret had not by far the richest part of my own private collection gone also. What I had hitherto sent home had little more than paid my expenses and what I had with me in the Helen I estimated would have realized about 500. And now I began to think that almost all the reward of my four years of privation and danger was lost. My collections, however, were in the hold and were irretrievably lost. However, after being in the boats some days I began to have more hope, and regretted not having saved some new shoes, cloth coat and trousers, hat, etc., which I might have done with a little trouble. I hardly thought it possible we should escape and I remember thinking it almost foolish to save my watch and the little money I had at hand. I was surprised to find myself very cool and collected. I cannot attempt to describe my feelings and thoughts during these events. He also had many specimens that he had shipped home separately before he left Belem for the Rio Negro. Fortunately, he had insurance and was at least compensated financially for his loss. He escaped with the crew, spending ten days at sea in a lifeboat, but thousands of carefully prepared specimens and all of his field notes went down with the ship. In the summer of 1852, he tried to return to England with everything he had collected on his inland expedition, but three weeks out at sea his ship, the brig Helen, caught fire and sank. There, he collected specimens of the flora and fauna, gathered information about the indigenous peoples, and made notes on the geography. He traveled far inland to explore the Rio Negro, a major river deep in the western Amazon Basin. Eventually, however, they had a falling out, and Wallace ended up going off on his own. Lingering near the coast after their arrival, they spent a year collecting in the vicinity of Belem, at the mouth of the Amazon. In 1848, after reading about the adventures of famous naturalist travelers such as Alexander von Humboldt and Charles Darwin, they embarked for Brazil in hopes of a collection bonanza. But both were fanatical beetle collectors, and together they scoured Leicestershire for specimens. Like Wallace, Bates had left school at an early age and lacked any formal education in natural science. While teaching school in Leicester in 1844, aged 21, he met Henry Walter Bates (1825–1892). Alfred had to stop attending school at the early age of 13, and yet, he educated himself and was eventually the author of many books on evolution and natural history. In 1835 his father, who seems always to have been improvident in his investments, was swindled out of most of his remaining property, and the Wallaces then fell on real hard times. 5) was that on his mother's side "the family were not improbably French refugees after the massacre of St. One of his typically speculative comments on this topic ( My Life, 1905, vol. But, in fact, Alfred left home at such an early age that as an old man he said he knew few specifics about even his more recent ancestors. Supposedly, the Wallaces were descendants of the Scottish warrior chieftain William Wallace, of Braveheart fame. They had up to that time lived as an upper middle class family in Hertford just north of London. The Wallaces, who were not Welsh, had been forced to move to Kensington as a measure of economy after Alfred's father squandered most of his inheritance on a series of poor business decisions. His place of birth was Kensington Cottage, which stands just across the Usk River from the town of Usk in southeastern Wales. His oddly spelled middle name was the result of a mistake at the time of registering his birth, which was never corrected. 7, 1913) is best known for developing a theory of evolution through natural selection independently of Charles Darwin.Īlfred Russel Wallace was born on January 8th, 1823, the eighth child of Thomas Vere Wallace and Mary Anne Wallace. The British naturalist, biogeographer, author, humanitarian, Alfred Russel Wallace (Jan. Inundated jungle along the Rio Negro, an area explored by Wallace.
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