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question once he completed his work on barnacles in 1854. Even then Darwin might have taken years to publish had a package not arrived in 1858 from Alfred Russel Wallace enclosing a paper describing the same theory. Wallace was a self- taught naturalist who had spent years in the Amazon and the Spice Islands collecting rare and exotic insects and birds and like Darwin he was very observant. In 1855 Wallace published a paper entitled On the Law Which Has Regulated the Introduction of New Species in The Annals and Magazine of Natural History. First listing a number of facts regarding the geological history of Earth and the geographical distribution of animals he drew the following conclusion Every species has come into existence coincident both in space and time with a pre- existing closely allied species. Lyell read the article and saw that Wallace was on the same track as Darwin. He advised Darwin to publish but Darwin didnt think Wallace was a threat Wallaces Law didnt say anything about how new species came into existence and didnt want to publish until he amassed more evidence. Darwin wrote to Lyell in 1856 To give a fair sketch would be absolutely impossible for every proposition requires such an array of facts. Then in June 1858 the package arrived. Lyell and the botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker both friends of Darwin arranged for Wallaces paper to be published along with an extract from Darwins 1844 sketch and a letter from Darwin to Asa Gray dated 1857. Thus the first announcement of the theory of natural selection appeared as a joint Darwin-Wallace paper in the Journal of the Linnean Society August 1858. Jolted into action Darwin finished the Origin in little over a year. Charles Darwin Few names are as famous as Darwin. A Victorian naturalist from a well-to-do family he was at one point headed for the clergy. Through a serendipitous series of events however he ended up on a five-year voyage around the world. It changed his life. Born into the new geology Darwin looked at the world in a new way A world millions of years in the making and one still undergoing small imperceptible changes a dynamic stage upon which individual organisms act out fleeting existences. From the rain forests of South America to the Galpagos Islands Darwin saw firsthand the variation between individuals and the desperate fight for survival. He also saw the close relationship between species that lived nearby and similar relationships across time between fossil animals and their modern counterparts. Facts that made him doubt the fixity of species. When he read Thomas Malthuss book on population theory in 1838 he realized the cold logic of differential success could explain how populations changed over time as individuals competed for food sex and survival-all against the backdrop of an ever-changing landscape that slowly but continually altered the rules of the game. In 1842 Darwin wrote a brief overview of his theory and then expanded it into a longer sketch in 1844. Recognizing its importance he left instructions with his wife for its publication in the event of his death. Darwin then spent the next ten years working on his collections from the voyage publishing a number of important books and papers on his geological and zoological discoveries before finally returning to the species 9