A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro : with an account of the native tribes, and observations on the climate, geology, and natural history of the Amazon Valley

1889·15.4 MB·English

by  Wallace, Alfred Russel, 1823-1913

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99 Wallace (A. Russell), LL.D. Travels on
theAmazonand Rio Negro,with an Account
of the Native Tribes, Observations on the
Climate, Geology and Natural History of the
Amazon Valley, withportrait, mapand other
illustrations, post8vo,cloth, 60c, 1888.

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THE MINERVA LIBRARY OF FAMOUS BOOKS.
Edited by G. T. BETTANY, M.A., B.Sc.
A NARRATIVE OF TRAVELS
ON THE
AMAZON AND RIO NEGRO,
WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE NATIVE TRIBES,
AND OBSERVATIONS ON THE CLIMATE, GEOLOGY, AND NATURAL
HISTORY OF THE AMAZON VALLEY.
BY
ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE,
LL.D.,
Authorof"TheMalayArchipelago""Darwinism,"etc.,etc.
HllS"
WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR. 3/ I
SECOND EDITION.
WARD, LOCK AND
CO.,
LONDON, NEW YORK, AND MELBOURNE
1889.

BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION,
{BY THE EDITOR.)
MR. ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE, the co-discoverei
with Mr. Darwin of the principle of natural selec-
tion as the main agent in the evolution of species, has in
his published works travelled over a much more diversified
range of subjects than Mr. Darwin. To books of travel, of
philosophical and of systematic natural history, he has added
others dealing with the causes ofdepressionoftrade, proposing
land nationalisation, defending belief in miracles and in
modern spiritualism, and attacking vaccination. Although it
would not be right here to enter into a criticism of such con-
troversial works, enough may be said to indicate that their
author, admittedly a master-mind in regard to the philosophy
and the details of evolution, is widely qualified in regard to
political and social questions.
Born at Usk in Monmouthshire on the8th ofJanuary, 1823,
and educated at Hertford Grammar School, the future adven-
turous traveller early becameavoyageron a small scale, during
his residence with an elder brother, a land surveyor and archi-
tect. From 1836 to 1848 while so Occupied he resided in
various parts of England and Wales, and acquired some
knowledge of agriculture and of the social and economic
conditions of the labouring classes. While living in South
Wales, about 1840, he first turned his attention to natural
history, devoting all his spare time to collecting and preserving
the native plants, and eagerly reading books of travel. While
residing at Leicester in 1844-5 (as an English master in the
Collegiate School), he made the acquaintance of Mr. H. W.
Bates, an ardent entomologist, and when, some years later,
the desire to visit tropical countries became too strong to be
tv Introduction.
resisted, he proposed to Mr. Bates a joint expedition to the
Amazons, one of the objects, in addition to the collection of
naturalhistoryspecimens, being to gather facts, as Mr. Wallace
expressed it in one ofhislettersto Mr. Bates, "towards solving
the problem of the origin of species," a subject on which they
had already conversed and corresponded extensively. The
two friends met in London early in 1848 to study the collec-
tions of South American animals and plants already there;
and they embarked at Liverpool in a small trading vessel on
the 20th of April, 1848, reaching the mouth of the Amazons
just a month later. From this date the present volume speaks
We
for itself. will merely note that Mr. Bates took a different
route of exploration from Mr. Wallace from March 1850 he
remained seven years longer in the country, and in 1863 p;ub-
lished his most attractive "Naturalist on the Amazons."
Mr. Wallace's travels on the Rio Negro and to the upper
waters ofthe Orinoco, hisadventurous ascent ofthe rapid river
Uaupes, his observations on the natural history and the native
tribes ofthe Amazon valley, are simply and naturally recorded
in this volume. His assemblage of facts will be seen to form
a broad basis for induction as to causes and modes oftrans-
formation of species. His return voyage bade fair to be his
last, for the vessel in which he sailed took fire, and was com-
pletely destroyed, with a large proportion of Mr. Wallace's
live animals and valuable specimens. Ten anxious days had
to be spent in boats, tortured not only by shortness of food
but by remembrances of the dangers encountered in obtaining
valued specimens, now irretrievably lost. It was only after an
eighty days' voyage that Mr. Wallace landed at Deal on the
18th ofOctober, 1852. His "Travels on the AmazonandRio
Negro," published in the autumn of 1853, had an excellent
reception, and after disposing of the collections which had
been sent home previous to his return Mr. Wallace started for
another tropical region, the Malay archipelago.
From July 1854, when he arrived in Singapore, to the early
part of 1862, Mr. Wallace travelled many thousand miles,
mostly in regions little explored before, especially for natural
history purposes. Borneo, Java, Sumatra, Timor, Celebes, the
Moluccas, the Aru and K6 Islands,and even NewGuineawere
visited, some more than once, and long sojourns were made in
the most interesting regions. Even those who have read his
INTRODUCTION. v
delightful "Malay Archipelago," first publishedin 1869, cannot
know all the treasures given to science by Mr. Wallace's eight
years' expatriation, for before writing his travels he had con-
tributed no fewer than eighteen papers to the transactions or
journalsoftheLinnean,Zoological,andEntomologicalSocieties,
and twelve articlesto various scientific periodicals, while in his
subsequentvolumeson"NaturalSelection," 1871,hismonumen-
tal work on the "Geographical DistributionofAnimals," 1876,
on"Tropical Nature," 1878,andon "IslandLife," 1880,helaid
open still more fully his accumulations of traveland thoughtin
bothhemispheres. Oneofthemostvaluableresultsofhistravels
in Malaysia was the establishment ofa line dividing the archi-
pelago into two main groups, Indo-Malaysia and Austro-
Malaysia, marked by peculiar species and groups of animals.
This line, now everywhere known as Wallace's line, is marked
by a deep sea belt between Celebes and Borneo, and Lombok
and Bali respectively ; and it is curious that a similar line, but
somewhat further east, divides on the whole the Malay from
the Papuan races of man. The new facts on butterflies, on
birds of paradise, on mimicry between various animals and
plants, and on the Malay and Papuan races are only a few of
the subjects of intense interest illuminated by Mr. Wallace as
the result ofhis travels in Malaysia.
In a paperin the Annals and Magazine ofNaturalHistory
forSeptember, 1855, "OntheLawthathasregulatedthe Intro-
duction ofNew Species," Mr. Wallace had already drawn the
conclusion that every species has come into existence coinci-
dent both in space and time with a pre-existing closely allied
species. In the same paper is a brief expression of the
idea which Mr. Darwin expanded into one of his fine
passages comparing all members of the same class of beings
to a great tree. The varied facts of the distribution of animal
and plant life, setforth andexplainedin thispaper, foreshadow
the author's future great work on the subject. Mr. Darwin,
already an observer and student of long standing on the
question of the origin of species, had noted this paper and
agreed to the truth of almost every word of it. In October
1856, Mr. Wallace wrote to Mr. Darwin from Celebes, and
in replying to his letter Mr. Darwin, on May 1st, 1857, said
he could plainly see that they had thought much alike, and
had to a certain extent come to similar conclusions; and later
INTRODUCTION.
vi
in the same yearhe wrote to Mr. Wallace, "I infinitely admire
and honour your zeal and courage in the good cause of
Natural Science."
In February 1858 Mr. Wallace wrote an essay at Ternate,
"On the Tendency ofVarieties to depart indefinitely from the
original Type," which proved to be the proximate cause of
the publication of Mr. Darwin's "Origin of Species." The
manuscript of this paper was sent to Mr. Darwin, and reached
him on June 18th, 1858, and the views it expressed coincided
remarkably with those developed in Mr. Darwin's mind by
many different lines ofinvestigation. He proposedto get Mr.
Wallace's consent to publish it as soon as possible; buton the
urgent persuasion ofSir Joseph Hooker and Sir Charles Lyell,
a joint communication of som—e extracts from a manuscript
written by Mr. Darwin in 1839 1844, and a letter written by
him to Professor Asa Gray of Boston, U.S., in 1857, together
with Mr. Wallace's paper, was made to the Linnean Society on
July 1st, 1858. As Sir Joseph Hooker wrote, "The interest
excited was intense, but the subject was too novel and too
ominousforthe oldschool to enterthelists before armouring;"
and there was no attempt at discussion. The further history
ofthe "Origin ofSpecies" controversy is well known, and has
previously been sketched in the first volume of this library.
What deserves repeating and emphasizing is that Mr. Wallace
must rank as a completely independent and original discoverer
ofthe essentialfeatureofthe "OriginofSpecies." Mr.Wallace
originally termed his view one of progression and continued
divergence. "Thisprogression,"hewroteintheLinneanessay,
"by minute steps, in various directions, but always checked
and balanced by the necessary conditions, subject to which
aloneexistence canbepreserved, may,itisbelieved,be followed
out so as to agree with all the phenomena presented by
organized beings, their extinction and succession in past ages,
and all the extraordinary modifications of form, instinct, and
habits which they exhibit." Nothing in scientific history is
more interesting or more admirable than the way in which
the two great discoverers in biological evolution fully admired
and recognized each other'sindependent work; and continued
their intercourse through life untinged by any shadow of un-
worthy feeling. Mr. Darwin wrote to Mr Wallace on January
25th, 1859, "Most cordially do I wish you health and entire