history, and can determine approximately its latest movements
above and below the sea-level; but wherever oceans
and seas now extend, be can do nothing but speculate on
the very limited data afforded 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. I t may he thought that the facts and
generalizations here given, would have been more appropriately
placed at the end rather than at the beginning
of a narrative 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 generalizations
which add so much to their interest. Having
given this general sketch of the subject, 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 whiehfe 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 foEow WEliam
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
radicaUy in every physical, mental, and moral character;
' and more detailed research, continued for bight years,
satisfied me that under these two forms, as types, the whole
of the peoples of the Malay Archipelago and Polynesia
- could be classified. On drawing the line which separates
these races, it is found to come near to that which divides
the zoological regions, but somewhat eastward of i t ; a
circumstance which appears to me very significant of the
same causes having influenced the distribution of mankind
that have determined the range of other animal forms.
The reason why exactly the same line does not Emit
both is sufficiently intelligible. Man has means of traversing
the sea which animals do not possess; and a
superior race has power to press out or assimilate an
inferior one. The maritime enterprise and higher civiE-
zation of the Malay races have enabled them to overrun