But, when physical
conditions became adverse, as by drought, cold, etc., they failed and
became extinct. The entrance of new enemies from another area might
equally render them failures. As to your question about myself and
Darwin, I had met him once only for a few minutes at the British Museum
before I went to the East.... --Yours very faithfully,
A.R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO MR. CLEMENT REID
_Parkstone, Dorset. November 18, 1894._
My dear Clement Reid,-- ... The great, the grand, and long-expected, the
prophesied discovery has at last been made--Miocene or Old Pliocene Man
in India!!! Good worked flints found _in situ_ by the palaeontologist to
the Geological Survey of India! It is in a ferruginous conglomerate
lying beneath 4,000 feet of Pliocene strata and containing hippotherium,
etc. But perhaps you have seen the article in _Natural Science_
describing it, by Rupert Jones, who, very properly, accepts it! Of
course we want the bones, but we have got the flints, and they may
follow. Hurrah for the missing link! Excuse more.--Yours very
faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
The next letter relates to the rising school of biologists who, in
opposition to Darwin's views, held that species might arise by what was
at the time termed "discontinuous variation."
TO PROF. MELDOLA
_February 4, 1895.
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