smaller ones, so that no one of them seems to be distinctly
separated from the rest. With but few exceptions,
all enjoy an uniform and very similar climate, and are
covered with a luxuriant forest vegetation. Whether we
study their form and distribution on maps, or actually
travel from island to island, our first impression will be
that they form a connected whole, all the parts of which
are intimately related to each other.
Extent of the Archipelago and Islands.—The Malay
Archipelago extends for more than 4,000 miles in length
from east to west, and is about 1,300 in breadth from
north to south. I t would stretch over an expanse equal to
that of all Europe from the extreme west far into Central
Asia, or would cover the widest parts of South America,
and extend far beyond the land into the Pacific and
Atlantic oceans. I t includes three islands larger than
Great Britain; and in one of them, Borneo, the whole of
the British Isles might be set down, and would be surrounded
by a sea of forests. Hew Guinea, though less
compact in shape, is probably larger than Borneo. Sumatra
is about equal in extent to Great Britain; Java, Luzon,
and Celebes are each about the size of Ireland. Eighteen
more islands are, on the average, as large as Jamaica;
more than a hundred are as large as the Isle of Wight;
while the isles and islets of smaller size are innumerable.
The absolute extent of land in the Archipelago is not
greater than that contained by Western Europe from
Hungary to Spain j ta t, owing to the manner in which the
land is broken up and divided, the variety of its produe-
TH E B R IT ISH ISLES AND BORNEO ON TH E SAME SCALE.
tions is rather in proportion to the immense surface over
which the islands are spread, than to the quantity of land
which they contain.