Wallace, Alfred Russel

[person]

English naturalist, geographer, and anthropologist, born in Monmouthshire (1823-1913). Wallace's most important work was in the Malay Archipelago (now the Indonesian Archipelago), where he spent 8 years collecting specimens and making observations. During this time he published the essays "On the Law Which Has Regulated the Introduction of New Species" and "On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely From the Original Type," in which he introduced the idea of evolution through natural selection.