had an immense mass of data bearing on the subject,
which he some day intended to issue in book form.

His paper for the Linnaeus Society simply summed up his convictions. And
now here was a man with whom he had never discussed this particular
subject, writing an almost identical paper and sending it to him--of all
men!

Well did he pinch his leg, and call in his wife, asking her if he were
alive or dead. Straightway he went to see Sir Charles Lyell and Sir
Joseph Hooker, both more eminent than he in the scientific world, and
laid the matter before them. After a long conference it was decided that
both papers should be read the same evening before the Linnaeus Society,
and this was done on the evening of July First, Eighteen Hundred
Fifty-eight.

Darwin then decided to publish his "Origin of Species," which in his
preface he modestly calls an "Abstract." The publication was hastened by
the fact that Wallace was compiling a similar work. After giving Wallace
full credit in his most interesting "Introduction," and reviewing all
that others had said in coming to similar conclusions, Darwin fired his
shot heard round the world. And no man was more delighted and pleased
with the echoing reverberations than Alfred Russel Wallace, as he read
the book in far-off Australia.

The honor of discovering the Law of Evolution, and lifting it out of the
hazy realms of hypothesis and poetry into the sunlight of science, will
ever be shared between Charles Robert Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace,
who were indeed brothers in spirit and lovers to the end of their days.

* * * * *

In an insignificant village of England, now famous alone because he
began from there his explorations of the world, Alfred Russel Wallace
was born, in the year Eighteen Hundred Twenty-two. He was one of a large
family of the middle class, where work is as natural as life, and the
indispensable virtues are followed as a means of self-preservation. It
is most unfortunate to attain such a degree of success that you think
you can waive the decalogue and give Nemesis the slip.

About the year Eighteen Hundred Forty, the railroad renaissance was on
in England, and young Wallace, alive, alert, active, did his turn as
apprentice to a surveyor.

Chance is a better schoolmaster than design. All boys have a taste for
tent life, and healthy youngsters not quite grown, with ostrich
digestions, passing through the nomadic stage, revel in