eplenish his medical
stores.

He was no mere "trudger" over new lands. Where those before him,
and even many after him, have been able to see only sterile
objects, his discerning eyes perceived everywhere a meaning in
the varying modes of organic life, and in response to his
sympathetic mind Nature revealed to him more of her multitudinous
secrets than to most others. Wallace's Amazonian travels were far
from unfruitful, in spite of the irreparable loss he sustained in
the burning of his notes and the bulk of his collections in the
vessel by which he was returning home; but it was in the Malay
Archipelago that his most celebrated years of investigation were
passed, which marked him as one of the greatest naturalists of our
time. As a methodical natural history collector--which is "the
best sport in the world" according to Darwin--he has never been
surpassed; and few naturalists, if any, have ever brought together
more enormous collections than he. The mere statement, taken from
his "Malay Archipelago," of the number of his captures in the
Archipelago in six years of actual collecting, exceeding 125,000
specimens--a number greater than the entire contents of many large
museums--still causes amazement. The value of a collection,
however, depends on the full and accurate information attached to
each specimen, and from this point of view only a few collections,
including Darwin's and Bates's, have possessed the great
scientific value of his.

Wallace's Eastern explorations included nearly all the large and
the majority of the smaller islands of the Archipelago. Many of
them he was the first naturalist to visit, or to reside on. Ceram,
Batjian, Buru, Lombok, Timor, Aru, Ke and New Guinea had never
been previously scientifically investigated. When in 1858 "the
first and greatest of the naturalists," as Dr. Wollaston styles
Wallace, visited New Guinea, it was "the first time that any
European had ventured to reside alone and practically unprotected
on the mainland of this country," which, dangerous as it is now in
the same regions, was infinitely more so then. Of the journals of
his voyagings, "The Malay Archipelago" will always be ranked among
the greatest narratives of travel. The fact that this volume has
gone through a dozen editions is witness to its extraordinary
popul