Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
over the country more or less thickly, but never so as to deserve the name of a forest. Coarse
and scanty grasses grow beneath them on the more barren hills, and a luxuriant herbage in
the moister localities. In the islands between Timor and Java there is often a more thickly
wooded country, abounding in thorny and prickly trees. These seldom reach any great
height, and during the force of the dry season they almost completely lose their leaves, al-
lowing the ground beneath them to be parched up, and contrasting strongly with the damp,
gloomy, ever-verdant forests of the other islands. This peculiar character, which extends in a
less degree to the southern peninsula of Celebes and the east end of Java, is most probably
owing to the proximity of Australia. The south-east monsoon, which lasts for about two-
thirds of the year (from March to November), blowing over the northern parts of that coun-
try, produces a degree of heat and dryness which assimilates the vegetation and physical as-
pect of the adjacent islands to its own. A little further eastward in Timor-laut and the Ké Is-
lands, a moister climate prevails, the south-east winds blowing from the Pacific through
Torres Straits and over the damp forests of New Guinea, and as a consequence every rocky
islet is clothed with verdure to its very summit. Further west again, as the same dry winds
blow over a wider and wider extent of ocean, they have time to absorb fresh moisture, and
we accordingly find the island of Java possessing a less and less arid climate, till in the ex-
treme west near Batavia rain occurs more or less all the year round, and the mountains are
everywhere clothed with forests of unexampled luxuriance.
Contrasts in Depth of Sea
It was first pointed out by Mr. George Windsor Earl,
*
in a paper read before the Royal Geo-
graphical Society in 1845, and subsequently in a pamphlet 'On the Physical Geography of
South-Eastern Asia and Australia,' dated 1855, that a shallow sea connected the great is-
lands of Sumatra, Java, and Borneo with the Asiatic continent, with which their natural pro-
ductions generally agreed; while a similar shallow sea connected New Guinea and some of
the adjacent islands to Australia, all being characterised by the presence of marsupials.
We have here a clue to the most radical contrast in the Archipelago, and by following it
out in detail I have arrived at the conclusion that we can draw a line among the islands,
which shall so divide them that one-half shall truly belong to Asia, while the other shall no
less certainly be allied to Australia. I term these respectively the Indo-Malayan, and the
Austro-Malayan divisions of the Archipelago.
On referring to pages 12, 13, and 36 of Mr. Earl's pamphlet, it will be seen that he main-
tains the former connexion of Asia and Australia as an important part of his view, whereas I
dwell mainly on their long continued separation. Notwithstanding this and other important
