18 The Malay Archipelago. 



formed. There has been some elevation, esi^ecially on the 

 south coast, where extensive cHffs of coral limestone are found, 

 and there may be a substratum of older stratified rocks ; but 

 still essentially Java is volcanic ; and that noble and fertile isl- 

 and — the very garden of the East, and perhaps upon the whole 

 the richest, the best cultivated, and the best governed tropical 

 island in the world — owes its very existence to the same in- 

 tense volcanic activity which still occasionally devastates its 

 surface. 



The great island of Sumatra exhibits, in proportion to its 

 extent, a much smaller number of volcanoes, and a consider- 

 able portion of it has probably a non-volcanic origin. 



To the eastward, the long string o'f islands from Java, 

 passing by the north of Timor and away to Banda, are prob- 

 ably all due to volcanic action. Timor itself consists of an- 

 cient stratified rocks, but is said to have one volcano near its 

 centre. 



Going northward, Amboyna, a part of Bouru, and the west 

 end of Ceram, the north part of Gilolo, and all the small isl- 

 ands aroimd it, the northern extremity of Celebes, and the 

 islands of Siau and Sanguir, are wholly volcanic. The Philip- 

 pine Archipelago contains many active and extinct volcanoes, 

 and has probably been reduced to its present fragmentary 

 condition by subsidences attending on volcanic action. 



All along this great line of volcanoes are to be found more 

 or less palpable signs of upheaval and depression of land. 

 The range of islands south of Sumatra, a part of the south 

 coast of Java and of the islands east of it, the west and east 

 end of Timor, portions of all the Moluccas, the Ke and Aru 

 Islands, Waigiou, and the whole south and east of Gilolo, con- 

 sist in a great measure of upraised coral rock exactly corre- 

 sponding to that now forming in the adjacent seas. In many 

 places I have observed the unaltered surfaces of the elevated 

 reefs, with great masses of coral standing up in their natural 

 position, and hundreds of shells so fresh-looking that it was 

 hard to believe that they had been moi-e than a few years out 

 of the water ; and, in fact, it is very probable that such changes 

 have occurred within a few centuries. 



The united lengths of these volcanic belts is about nine- 

 ty degrees, or one-fourth of the entire circumference of the 



