rself and all your family are quite well, believe me yours
very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

_Down, Beckenham, Kent. June 5, 1876._

My dear Wallace,--I must have the pleasure of expressing to you my
unbounded admiration of your book,[100] though I have read only to page
184--my object having been to do as little as possible while resting. I
feel sure that you have laid a broad and safe foundation for all future
work on Distribution. How interesting it will be to see hereafter plants
treated in strict relation to your views; and then all insects,
pulmonate molluscs, and fresh-water fishes, in greater detail than I
suppose you have given to these lower animals. The point which has
interested me most, but I do not say the most valuable point, is your
protest against sinking imaginary continents in a quite reckless manner,
as was started by Forbes, followed, alas, by Hooker, and caricatured by
Wollaston and Murray. By the way, the main impression which the latter
author has left on my mind is his utter want of all scientific judgment.
I have lifted up my voice against the above view with no avail, but I
have no doubt that you will succeed, owing to your new arguments and the
coloured chart. Of a special value, as it seems to me, is the conclusion
that we must determine the areas chiefly by the nature of the mammals.
When I worked many years ago on this subject, I doubted much whether the
now-called Palearctic and Nearctic regions ought to be separated; and I
determined if I made another region that it should be Madagascar. I have
therefore been able to appreciate the value of your evidence on these
points. What progress Palaeontology has made during the last 20 years!
But if it advances at the same rate in the future, our views on the
migration and birthplace of the various groups will, I fear, be greatly
altered. I cannot feel quite easy about the Glacial period and the
extinction of large mammals, but I much hope that you are right. I think
you will have to modify your belief about the difficulty of dispersal of
land molluscs; I was interrupted when beginning to experimentise on the
just-hatched young adhering to the feet of ground-roosting birds. I
differ on one other point, viz. in the belief that there must have
existed a Tertiary Antarctic continent, from which various forms
radiated to the southern extremities of our present continents. But I
could go on scribbling f