28 The Malay Archipelago. 



Africa and South America is also very great, and these two re- 

 gions will well serve to illustrate the question we are consider- 

 ing. On the one side we have baboons, lions, elephants, buffa- 

 loes, and giraffes ; on the other, spider-monkeys, pumas, tapirs, 

 ant-eaters, and sloths ; while among birds, the hornbills, turacos, 

 orioles, and honeysuckers of Africa contrast strongly with the 

 toucans, macaws, chatterers, and humming-birds of America. 

 Now let us endeavor to imagine (what it is very probable 

 may occur in future ages) that a slow upheaval of the bed of 

 the Atlantic should take place, while at the same time earth- 

 quake-shocks and volcanic action on the land should cause in- 

 creased volumes of sediment to be poured down by the rivers, 

 so that the two continents should gradually spread out by the 

 addition of newly-formed lands, and thus reduce the Atlantic, 

 which now sepai'ates them, to an arm of the sea a few hun- 

 dred miles wide. At the same time we may suppose islands 

 to be upheaved in mid-channel ; and, as the subterranean forces 

 varied in intensity, and shifted their points of greatest action, 

 these islands would sometimes become connected with the 

 land on one side or other of the strait, and at other times 

 again be separated from it. Several islands would at one 

 time be joined together, at another would be broken up again, 

 till at last, after many long ages of such intermittent action, 

 we might have an irregular archipelago of islands filling up 

 the ocean-channel of the Atlantic, in whose appearance and 

 arrangement we could discover nothing to tell us which had 

 been connected with Africa and which with America. The 

 animals and jjlants inhabiting these islands would, however, 

 certainly reveal this portion of their former history. On those 

 islands which had ever formed a part of the South American 

 continent we should be sure to find such common birds as 

 chatterers and toucans and humming-birds, and some of the 

 peculiar American quadrupeds ; while on those which had been 

 separated from Africa, hornbills, orioles, and honeysuckers 

 would as certainly be found. Some portion of the upraised 

 land might at different times have had a temporary connection 

 with both continents, and would then contain a certain amount 

 of mixture in its living inhabitants. Such seems to have been 

 the case with the islands of Celebes and the Philippines. 

 Other islands, again, though in such close proximity as Bali 



