The records of his observations of deep-sea channels were used by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace when studying the disjuncts in the bio-geographic distribution of the region.

He published a seminal anthropological reference on the Papuan peoples, compiled from first-hand accounts of other visitors to the region, though his direct contact or exploration of the land is unrecorded and seems unlikely.

The volume functioned as a standard reference on the people until the twentieth century, though based on a treatment as a racial classification, was noted for its focus on research from the field.

[4] The book included papers on racial types written in 1845, these were encouraged and edited by James Richardson Logan and published in Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia.

His sister, Elizabeth (1817–1890) married John Loftus Hartwell, an Assistant-Surgeon in the army; his elder brother Percy William Earl (1811–1846) was also a naturalist.