ng narrative, detailing their bodily and mental
characteristics, and showing how their distribution accorded with
that of the fauna on the opposite sides--Malays to the West,
Papuans to the East--of Wallace's Line. If fuller investigation of
the New Guinea tribes requires some modification in regard to
their origin, his observations, as broadly outlined then, remain
true still. His opinions on the origin of the Australian
aborigines--that they were a low and primitive type of Caucasian
race--which, when first promulgated, were somewhat sceptically
received, are now those accepted by many very competent
anthropologists.

Wallace's contributions to Geographical Science were only second
in importance to those he so pre-eminently made to biology. Though
skilled in the use of surveying instruments, he did little or no
map-making--at all times a laborious and lengthy task--for, with
more important purposes in his mind, he could not spare the time,
nor did the limitations to his movements permit any useful
attempt. Yet he did pure geographical work quite as important. The
value of the comparative study of the flora and fauna of
neighbouring regions, the great differences in the midst of much
likeness between the organic life of neighbouring land masses, was
a subject that was always in Wallace's mind during his exploration
of the Amazon Valley, for he perceived that the physical geography
and the distribution of these animals and plants were of the
greatest service in elucidating their history where the geological
record was defective. As is well known, the visual inspection of
the geological structure of tropical countries is always difficult
and often impossible to make out because of the dense vegetation
upon the surface and even the faces of the river gorges. But for
the loss of his collections and notes we should have had from
Wallace's pen a Physical History of the Amazon. This loss was,
however, amply made up by his very original contributions to the
geography of the Malay Archipelago. "The Zoological Geography of
the Malay Archipelago" and "The Physical Geography of the Malay
Archipelago" (written on Eastern soil, with the texts of his
discourses around him) were the forerunners of his monumental
"Geographical Distribution of Animals," elaborated in England
after his retur