districts could be expected to do even if they still formed
a part of Asia; and this close resemblance, joined with
the fact of the wide extent of sea which separates them
being so uniformly and remarkably shallow, and lastly,
the existence of the extensive range of volcanoes in
Sumatra and Java, which have poured out vast quantities
of subterranean matter and have built up extensive
plateaux and lofty mountain ranges, thus furnishing a
vera causa for a parallel line of subsidence—all lead irresistibly
to the conclusion that at a very recent geological
epoch the continent of Asia extended far beyond its
present limits in a south-easterly direction, including the
islands of Java, Sumatra, and Borneo, and probably reaching
as far as the present 100-fathom line of soundings.
The Philippine Islands agree in many respects with
Asia and the other islands, but present some anomalies,
which seem to indicate that they were separated at an
earlier period, and have since been subject to many
revolutions in their physical geography.
Turning our attention now to the remaining portion of
the Archipelago, we shall find that all the islands from
Celebes and Lombock eastward exhibit almost as close a
resemblance to Australia and New Guinea as the Western
Islands do to Asia. It is well known that the natural
productions of Australia differ from those of Asia more
than those of any of the four ancient quarters of the
CHAP> ¿3 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 21
world differ from each other. Australia, in fact, stands
alone: it possesses no apes or monkeys, no cats or tigers,
wolves, bears, or hyenas; no deer or antelopes, sheep or
oxen; no elephant, horse, squirrel, or rabbit; none, in
short, of those familiar types of quadruped which are met
with in every other part of the world. Instead of these,
it has Marsupials only, kangaroos and opossums, wombats
and the duck-billed Platypus. In birds it is almost as
peculiar. It has no woodpeckers and no pheasants,
families which exist in every other part of the world; but
instead of them it has the mound-making brush-turkeys,
the honeysuckers, the cockatoos, and the brush-tongued
lories, which are found nowhere else upon the globe. All
these striking peculiarities are found also in those islands
which form the Austro-Malayan division of the Archipelago.
The great contrast between the two divisions of the
Archipelago is nowhere so abruptly exhibited as on passing
from the island of Bali to that of Lombock, where the
two regions are in closest proximity. In Bali we have
barbets, fruit-thrushes, and woodpeckers ; on passing over
to Lombock these are seen no more, but we have abundance
of cockatoos, honeysuckers, and brush-turkeys, which
are equally unknown in Bali,1 or any island further west.
1 I was informed, however, th a t there were a few cockatoos at one spot
on the west of Bali, showing th a t the intermingling of the productions of
these islands is now going on.