Si Life ofB'vr Stamford RafHes. 



The geological character of the island, and the nature of the 

 resulting soil, have been mentioned already when contemplating 

 the peculiarities of the Malayan countries in general. The 

 riches of Java belong entirely to the organic kingdoms of nature. 

 Its vegetable productions are distinguished not merely by their 

 abundance, but also by their extraordinary variety. J'or between 

 the summits of the mountainous chain which traverses the island, 

 and the sea-shore, six distinct zones, differing in climate, are pro- 

 duced, by the difference of elevation in a country so near the 

 equator ; each of which furnishes a copious indigenous botany ; 

 whilst, for the same cause, the productions of every region of the 

 world may be cultivated in some district or other. All the tro- 

 pical plants that contribute to the sustenance of man abound in 

 perfection ; nor is Java deficient in those more curious vegetable 

 productions, which, though not so essentially useful as the former, 

 are yet of considerable importance to civilized society. Among 

 these are a shrub yielding caout-chouc or elastic gum, the wax 

 tree, and a tree producing a substance which strongly resembles 

 tallow. 



The woods abound with timber-trees ; and in the eastern pro- 

 vinces are extensive forests of Teak, which appears to exist, in the 

 Malayan countries, only in Java and the islands further to the 

 cast, as it is not to be found on the peninsula of Malacca, in 

 Sumatra, or in Borneo, and but very scantily on Celebes, where 

 it does not seem to be indigenous. The Bambu, applied to so 

 many useful purposes in all the eastern countries, appears to find 

 in Java a soil and a climate more congenial to it than elsewhere, 

 for it grows here in far greater luxuriance and variety. And 

 turning to those remarkable plants which secrete a substance de- 

 structive of animal life, we find in Java and the easterly isles the 

 celebrated Upas or Poison-tree, the history of which has given 

 rise to a multitude of apalling, but fabulous narrations; together 

 with a shrub, apparently peculiar to Java, which furnishes a poison 

 still more virulent and rapid in its action. 



Nor are the animal productions of this island less important, or 

 in a scientific point of view less interesting : but as a future 

 number of this work will contain a review of the contents of Dr. 



