Infinite Tropics – An Alfred Russel Wallace Anthology.(book review)

Title :- Infinite Tropics – An Alfred Russel Wallace Anthology.

By :- Andrew Berry (editor)

Published :- Verso, London, New York (2002) Hard back (380 pages).

Outline :- A wonderful look at Wallaces life from humble surveyor in England with a hobby of collecting bugs he embarks on an adventure to Brazil to collect specimens for European collectors, learning taxidermy and collecting life pets. He spends about 2 years going far upstream and into tiny native villages etc. Based on this experience he write a thesis on how animals have a defined territory based upon impenetrable boundaries – high mountains of large rivers etc. On his journey home his sailing ship catches fire and sinks, losing his 2 years of specimens. However he escapes death first by having to bail water for 3 days from the dried lifeboats, then near starvation they are rescued, but that ship is becalmed and the rations again come close to starvation. Miraculously a ship passes and they get rations, and some wind that takes them home to England. Russel becomes friends with Charles Darwin and his associates.  Some years later Russel heads off to Dutch Indonesia and wanders about the islands collecting more specimens. Having spent years in the jungle on geological mapping I can identify with Russel’s outlook on dry socks, coffee and durian etc. He gets malaria several times and writes his famous “survival of the fittest” letter to Darwin while recovering in Tertinate – an off the track town used for the spice trade. He continues his travels and hence we have the “Russel line” dividing the Asian species including monkeys and tigers etc with the Australian species of birds and mammals. He returns to England and joins Darwin and supports him in the great debates. However Russel feels there is something more – that we now recognize as DNA in each part of our body, but Darwin rejected this concept. Russel was a young tall man that was interested in the wider social aspects of life, whereas Darwin was an older man focused on his science. Russel continued to lecture but typically he spoke his mind and blamed the Americans for destroying their native flora & fauna and replacing it with European stocks and city slums.

An excellent read.