page_title: The Malay Archipelago
section_title: Calcutta Review
hierarchical_section_title: The Malay Archipelago / Reception / Contemporary / Calcutta Review
caption_attribution_description: English: Contains a fine collection of Fossils and Minerals, a Geological Gallery, Gallery of Antiquities and Library.
context_page_description: The Malay Archipelago is a book by the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace which chronicles his scientific exploration, during the eight-year period 1854 to 1862, of the southern portion of the Malay Archipelago including Malaysia, Singapore, the islands of Indonesia, then known as the Dutch East Indies, and the island of New Guinea. It was published in two volumes in 1869, delayed by Wallace's ill health and the work needed to describe the many specimens he brought home. The book went through ten editions in the nineteenth century; it has been reprinted many times since, and has been translated into at least eight languages.
  The book describes each island that he visited in turn, giving a detailed account of its physical and human geography, its volcanoes, and the variety of animals and plants that he found and collected. At the same time, he describes his experiences, the difficulties of travel, and the help he received from the different peoples that he met. The preface notes that he travelled over 14,000 miles and collected 125,660 natural history specimens, mostly of insects though also thousands of molluscs, birds, mammals and reptiles.
context_section_description: The Calcutta Review starts by noting that this is a book that cannot be done justice in a brief notice, that Wallace is a most eminent naturalist, and chiefly known as a Darwinian; the book was the most interesting to cross the reviewer's desk since Palgrave's Arabia (1865) and Sir Samuel Baker's Explorations of the Nile (1866). By combining geography, geology and ethnology into one narrative, the reader is saved "the monotony of traversing the same regions several times". The review describes in detail Wallace's findings of different birds and mammals either side of the Wallace line. It notes Wallace's cheerfulness and good temper in the face of "the difficulties and inconveniences attendant upon foreign travel", such as having to cross "a hundred miles of open sea in a little boat of four tons burthen", which Wallace calmly describes as comparatively comfortable. The reviewer remarks that Wallace was "set down as a conjuror by these simple people" with unimaginable purposes from a faraway country, but is less admiring about Wallace's moralising tone, especially when he supposes that "wild communities" can be happier than "in a more highly civilised society". The review ends with some reflections of surprise on how little-known the Malay Archipelago is in India, given that they were closely connected with Hindu temples in Java and Bali, and hopes that soon there will be some "productions" of the archipelago in the Indian Museum of Calcutta.
caption: The Indian Museum, Calcutta
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