Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
pears to have been extending its limits in a south-east direction, first in an unbroken mass,
then separated into islands as we now see it, and almost coming into actual contact with the
scattered fragments of the great southern land.
From this outline of the subject, it will be evident how important an adjunct Natural His-
tory is to Geology; not only in interpreting the fragments of extinct animals found in the
earth's crust, but in determining past changes in the surface which have left no geological
record. It is certainly a wonderful and unexpected fact, that an accurate knowledge of the
distribution of birds and insects should enable us to map out lands and continents which dis-
appeared beneath the ocean long before the earliest traditions of the human race. Wherever
the geologist can explore the earth's surface, he can read much of its past history, and can
determine approximately its latest movements above and below the sea-level; but wherever
oceans and seas now extend, he can do nothing but speculate on the very limited data af-
forded by the depth of the waters. Here the naturalist steps in, and enables him to fill up this
great gap in the past history of the earth.
One of the chief objects of my travels was to obtain evidence of this nature; and my
search after such evidence has been rewarded by great success, so that I have been enabled
to trace out with some probability the past changes which one of the most interesting parts
of the earth has undergone. It may be thought that the facts and generalizations here given,
would have been more appropriately placed at the end rather than at the beginning of a nar-
rative of the travels which supplied the facts. In some cases this might be so, but I have
found it impossible to give such an account as I desire of the natural history of the numerous
islands and groups of islands in the Archipelago, without constant reference to these gener-
alizations which add so much to their interest. Having given this general sketch of the sub-
ject, I shall be able to show how the same principles can be applied to the individual islands
of a group as to the whole Archipelago; and make my account of the many new and curious
animals which inhabit them both more interesting and more instructive than if treated as
mere isolated facts.
Contrasts of Races
Before I had arrived at the conviction that the eastern and western halves of the Archipelago
belonged to distinct primary regions of the earth, I had been led to group the natives of the
Archipelago under two radically distinct races. In this I differed from most ethnologists who
had before written on the subject; for it had been the almost universal custom to follow Wil-
liam von Humboldt and Pritchard, in classing all the Oceanic races as modifications of one
type. Observation soon showed me, however, that Malays and Papuans differed radically in
