[log in to unmask]" type="cite">Yes, that's what happened - Rob's book mentions that. I'd forgotten...
How very fortunate that at least some of his artwork remains...

Consie

Consie Powell
www.consiepowell.com
www.science-art.com
www.wincbooks.com





Linda Feltner wrote:

Yes!
Wasn't it this very Wallace, who after three or so years in the Amazon, lost all his sketchbooks and collections in the rickety old ship that sank taking him back to England???
Gosh, my memory blanks out on that one.
I think he made several trips to the Amazon (three or four?)

I read about that after I had read Margaret Mee's books on her Amazon travels, the fabulous paintings she produced, and sort-of remember thinking that she visited the same tributaries that Wallace visited!

Someone correct me if I'm wrong on this one. My memory has great gapin' holes.
Just fabulous,
Linda
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Consie Powell wrote:

Speaking of Wallace - I have just read a recently published book called "Every Living Thing: Man's Obsessive Quest to Catalog Life, from Nanobacteria to New Monkeys" written by my husband's colleague here at NCSU, Rob Dunn. It's a wonderful read, and in part of it, Rob writes about Wallace's time in the Amazon, and how Wallace sketched the insects he collected. From Rob's writing (which is very good, and fun to read) I got a sense that Rob had viewed these sketches, and had been able to sense, from the artwork, Wallace's excitement about what he was seeing. I asked Rob about this, and he loaned me the book he had, which had color plates of Wallaces moths and other insects. And they were stunning. So, unlike many of our other brilliant scientists, Wallace was also clearly very good at illustrating his own specimens. Cool...

Consie

Consie Powell
www.consiepowell.com
www.science-art.com
www.wincbooks.com





Britt Griswold wrote:

Barry K. MacKay wrote:

 
Now, this day, I have evoked the 200th birthday of Darwin (a hero of mine but for his shameful treatment of Wallace...but  no one's perfect, and Darwin was for the most part quite a very fine person in all respects and certainly a figure who towers in history) in a document I am writing (and will get back to in just a moment) trying to explain to the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources why it is NOT necessary to kill cormorants in order to save trees, herons, fish...whatever...given that these species have co-evolved for so long.
 

There was a recent article in the Washington Post on Wallace. A collecting cabinet off his with about 1200 specimens has turned up here.  According to this report. Wallace came up with similar thinking to Darwin after Darwin did.  Once he put his thoughts in order, he wrote to Darwin to get his opinion.  Darwin, realizing he was to be scooped if he did not do something, presented at a science meeting first his own thoughts and immediately read Wallace's afterward to the group.  Technically this gave Darwin precedence.  In later years Wallace was quoted as saying he held Darwin in great respect and that Darwin's writing on the subject of evolution was better than he could have done.  But Wallace probably should be better known than he is.

Heard a report of National Public Radio this morning:
Darwin had spent the decades between his realization and publication collecting evidence to convince people of the rightness of his argument.  Also it turns out that his wife was a very religious woman whom he loved greatly and was his best friend, so why rock the boat when it can be put off till latter?  The death of his second daughter at the age of 10 (it sounds like she would have been a brilliant adult) hit Darwin and his wife very hard, and pushed him in the direction of getting his theories into shape.  His wife actually supported him.  Sounds like a great marriage.

Britt