Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
from Asia, but probably before the extreme south-eastern portion of Asia was raised above
the waters of the ocean; for a great part of the land of Borneo and Java is known to be geo-
logically of quite recent formation, while the very great difference of species, and in many
cases of genera also, between the productions of the Eastern Malay Islands and Australia, as
well as the great depth of the sea now separating them, all point to a comparatively long
period of isolation.
It is interesting to observe among the islands themselves, how a shallow sea always intim-
ates a recent land-connexion. The Aru Islands, Mysol, and Waigiou, as well as Jobie, agree
with New Guinea in their species of mammalia and birds much more closely than they do
with the Moluccas, and we find that they are all united to New Guinea by a shallow sea. In
fact, the 100-fathom line round New Guinea marks out accurately the range of the true
Paradise birds.
It is further to be noted—and this is a very interesting point in connexion with theories of
the dependence of special forms of life on external conditions—that this division of the Ar-
chipelago into two regions characterised by a striking diversity in their natural productions,
does not in any way correspond to the main physical or climatal divisions of the surface.
The great volcanic chain runs through both parts, and appears to produce no effect in assim-
ilating their productions. Borneo closely resembles New Guinea not only in its vast size and
its freedom from volcanoes, but in its variety of geological structure, its uniformity of cli-
mate, and the general aspect of the forest vegetation that clothes its surface. The Moluccas
are the counterpart of the Philippines in their volcanic structure, their extreme fertility, their
luxuriant forests, and their frequent earthquakes; and Bali with the east end of Java has a cli-
mate almost as dry and a soil almost as arid as that of Timor. Yet between these correspond-
ing groups of islands, constructed as it were after the same pattern, subjected to the same
climate, and bathed by the same oceans, there exists the greatest possible contrast when we
compare their animal productions. Nowhere does the ancient doctrine—that differences or
similarities in the various forms of life that inhabit different countries are due to correspond-
ing physical differences or similarities in the countries themselves—meet with so direct and
palpable a contradiction. Borneo and New Guinea, as alike physically as two distinct coun-
tries can be, are zoologically wide as the poles asunder; while Australia, with its dry winds,
its open plains, its stony deserts, and its temperate climate, yet produces birds and quadru-
peds which are closely related to those inhabiting the hot damp luxuriant forests which
everywhere clothe the plains and mountains of New Guinea.
In order to illustrate more clearly the means by which I suppose this great contrast has
been brought about, let us consider what would occur if two strongly contrasted divisions of
