Alfred Russel Wallace was born in a small village of Usk, which is located in Wales. Shortly after finishing school, Wallace's father passed away and he joined his brother surveying countries. Wallace continued to do work with the brother surveying countries for four years. Through this experience, he acquired his talent for observation and detailed recordings which helped immensely later on in his life.
Alfred Wallace is best known for his theory of natural selection. From 1854 to 1862 he and his mentor Henry Walter Bates explored the Amazon River. It was during this expedition that he saw differences between the animals in Asia and the animals in Australia. From this observation he put a line between the Malay islands and Celebes which he called the Wallace’s Line. Out of this experience came his theory of natural selection.
After he thought about this theory he wrote a manuscript called “On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type.” Instead of just sending his manuscript straight to the publishers, he first sent it to Charles Darwin. At this time Darwin saw so many similarities with his theory that he decided to publish his theory right away. To this day, Wallace’s greatest accomplishment was to get Charles Darwin to publish his own theory.
http://library.advanced.org/java/library/bios/wallace.htm
http://homepage.iol.ie~spice/alfred.htm
http://www.strangescience.net/
Written by Erin Wellcome
Edited By Lindsey Alston