Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
long-continued separation by more or less impassable barriers; and as wide oceans and great
contrasts of temperature are the most complete barriers to the dispersal of all terrestrial
forms of life, the primary divisions of the earth should in the main serve for all terrestrial or-
ganisms. However various may be the effects of climate, however unequal the means of dis-
tribution, these will never altogether obliterate the radical effects of long-continued isola-
tion; and it is my firm conviction, that when the botany and the entomology of New Guinea
and the surrounding islands become as well known as are their mammals and birds, these
departments of nature will also plainly indicate the radical distinctions of the Indo-Malayan
and Austro-Malayan regions of the great Malay Archipelago.
