360 WALLACE'S NOTES ON A [June 27, 1859. 



to that country, and which seem to be good for nothing except to produce 

 fine feathers to adorn European ladies and Chinese mandarins. There are 

 ten or twelve different species of this beautiful bird, which, after all, is 

 but a kind of crow. The island also produces a monster pigeon, almost as 

 big as a turkey — a most beautiful bird, of which there are, I believe, two 

 species. Living specimens of these are to be seen in the Zoological Gardens. 

 Dampier gave an exceedingly good description of New Guinea about 170 

 years ago. 



Dr. G. Kinkel, f.r.g.s. — I should not address this meeting if there were any 

 gentlemen present who had visited New Guinea, but since it is a country 

 which we know almost exclusively from books, I may be allowed to say a few 

 words on some new points in the report before the meeting. The first point 

 is — and I think it is an entirely new one — that there is only one race of 

 people in this island. We have been accustomed to believe that there were 

 two different races : a Malay race in the interior, and a black race skirting the 

 coasts. This relation of the two races would indeed make the island an exception 

 to all maritime countries in that quarter of the world. It appears, however, 

 from the paper of Mr. Wallace, that there is in the interior an agricultural 

 race, whose dwelling-places would seem to be somewhat different in construc- 

 tion from the huts of the outlying tribes along the coast, who bear the especial 

 name of Arfaki ; and although Mr. Wallace does not enter fully into the 

 subject, it yet appears that this theory of two races — one black, a trading 

 class, and another more agricultural, in the interior — is not entirely exploded 

 by his observations. The second point seems to me to be of some importance : 

 it is that this island is not favoured with the clear tropical sunshine which we 

 might expect. The very height of the mountains of New Guinea, which in some 

 parts near the coast attain an altitude of 9500 feet, must, in a warm 

 climate, and in the midst of a really steaming ocean, of necessity cause 

 heavy rains ; still more the amount of vegetation in this large and wonderful 

 island, although stunted in its growth, must of necessity produce a vast 

 amount of precipitation. The great point, however, to which I would call 

 attention is the irregularity of the monsoons mentioned by Mr. Wallace, 

 which, I think, is very important to navigators. This irregularity is not diffi- 

 cult to explain. New Guinea lies at the outskirts of the Indian monsoons ; 

 the monsoons are produced, as every wind upon the globe is, by the heating of 

 certain parts of the great continents. The enormous heating in the central 

 I^arts of Asia during our summer causes a stream of air from cooler and more 

 southern latitudes to flow over them, producing the south-west monsoon ; and 

 the north-east monsoon is attracted in the same way by. the great heating of 

 Southern Africa in the contrary season ; consequently, these eastern islands, 

 like New Guinea, can only be considered as lying on the outskirts of the moa- 

 soons, and the absence of great continents around them will account for the 

 greater irregularity of their periodical winds. The influence of the monsoons by 

 this different heating of great continents is no longer powerful enough to keep 

 off a current of cooler air from the ocean in these parts. This, I believe, 

 will explain Mr. Wallace's observation, which, as I said, is of very great im- 

 j)ortance to navigation. As to the discovery of New Guinea, the Dutch cer- 

 tainly are the principal investigators of this island. They were the first to 

 discover the existence of a narrow channel between the small island to the 

 south-west, called "Prince Frederick Island," and the main land. They 

 were also the first discoverers of the great bay, and, finding a quantity of 

 yellowfinches there, they called it "Geelvink," or "Yellow Finches' Bay ;" a 

 name that has been given to it since in all our charts. The Dutch claim half 

 the island up to the meridian of 141°, and it is under their flag and from their 

 dominions in Dutch India that the principal trade is carried on in these 

 islands. And as we owe to them almost all we know about this island, it 



