WALLACE, Alfred Russell (Wallace Alfred Russel)

(1823-1913)
Born January 8, 1823 in the ascus (county of Monmouthshire, Wales). He graduated from high school in Hartford, worked as a surveyor, a contractor for construction of the railway, a teacher at school. From 1844 he taught at Leicester school, where he became friendly with another young teacher, G. Bates, is also interested in natural sciences. Save money, Wallace and Bates went on a sailing ship to Brazil, where for two years studying the area from the mouth of the Amazon to the confluence of the Rio Negro it. Bates then went up the Amazon, and Wallace - up the Rio Negro. In 1852, gathering a collection of plants and animals, Wallace decided to return to England. Unfortunately, a fire on the ship, which sailed Wallace, destroyed all his collections, drawings and diaries. But already in 1854 with the help of Thomas Huxley Wallace managed to raise money for another big trip - to the Malay Archipelago. Here he spent eight years old, examined most of the major islands of the archipelago, brought to England rich collections. In early 1855 Wallace wrote an article called on the laws governing the emergence of new species (On the Law Which Has Regulated the Introduction of New Species), and later came to think of 'survival of the fittest'. Article Outline The desire varieties infinitely removed from the original type (On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type, . 1858) Wallace, sent to England, Charles Darwin to provide its Linnaean scientific society,
. Reading the manuscript of Wallace, Darwin discovered in her ideas that have long pondered. On the advice of friends - Charles Lyell and Dzh.Gukera - Darwin referred to the Linnean Society not only the story of Wallace, but a summary of their own research.
Wallace's idea to the division of land into six zoogeographic regions: Palearctic, Nearctic, Ethiopian, Oriental (Indo-Malay), the Australian and Neotropical. Of the numerous zoogeographical Wallace discovered the most amazing contrasts - between the islands of Bali and Lombok. Although these islands are separated by the strait, whose width at the narrowest point less than 24 km, the differences between the species within them birds and quadrupeds than between the fauna of Britain and Japan. The fact that this is just the Strait of zoogeographic boundary (now known as 'Wallace line') separating the area of distribution of a typical Australian fauna of lying to the north of the spread of the Indo-Malayan fauna.

In 1862, Wallace returned to England. In 1870 published the book's contribution to the theory of natural selection (Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, . 1870), . which along with the Origin of Species, Darwin has played a significant role in spreading ideas about natural selection and evolution,
. Wallace was a member of the Royal Society of London, in 1908 was awarded the Order of Merit. Wallace died in Brodstoune (Dorset) 7 November 1913.