CHANGES OF LAND AND WATER. 36 1 



Thus the Mediterranean at one time was an inland sea, 

 when, in the place of the Straits of Gibraltar, an isthmus 

 connected Africa with Spain. England, even during the 

 more recent history of the earth, when man already 

 existed, has repeatedly been connected with the European 

 continent and been repeatedly separated from it. Nay, 

 even Europe and North America have been directly 

 connected. The South Sea at one time formed a 

 large Pacific Continent, and the numerous little islands 

 which now lie scattered in it were simply the highest 

 peaks of the mountains covering that continent. The 

 Indian Ocean formed a continent which extended from 

 the Sunda Islands along the southern coast of Asia to 

 the east coast of Africa. This large continent of former 

 times Sclater, an Englishman, has called Lemuria, from the 

 monkey-like animals which inhabited it, and it is at the 

 same time of great importance from being the probable 

 cradle of the human race, which in all likehhood here first 

 developed out of anthropoid apes. The important proof 

 which Alfred Wallace has furnished,^^ by the help of 

 chorological facts, that the present Malayan Archipelago 

 consists in reality of two completely different divisions, 

 is particularly interesting. Tlie western division, the Indo- 

 Malayan Archipelago, comprising the large islands of 

 Borneo, Java, and Sumatra, was formerly connected by 

 Malacca with the Asiatic continent, and probably also witli 

 the Lemurian continent just mentioned. The eastern 

 division, on the other hand, the Austro-Malayan Archipelago, 

 comprising Celebes, the Moluccas, New Guinea, Solomon's 

 Islands, etc., was formerly directly connected with Austra- 

 lia. Both divisions were formerly two continents separated 



