799 



time a great part of Timor was still covered by a sea full of coral- 

 islands and reefs, from vvliicli I he higher mountains emerged as 

 islands, similarly to what maj still be observed farther eastward 

 in the islands, east of Moa. Ever since a general elevation above 

 the sealevel has been going on, which may still be proceeding. Signs 

 of this uprise can be witnessed in all (he islands of the region 

 under consideration. 



The foregoing points to a decrease of tangential pressure after the 

 miocene process of mountain building and to a renewed intensification 

 of that process in the plio-pleistocene, which possibly still continues. 



Shape of the roiüs of islands. 



For a more comprehensive exposition we refer to the map, 

 accompanying our paper on the orogenetical movements in the 

 discussed region')'); from fig. 1 it is, however, sufficiently evident 

 that the outer row, in the part Rotti — Timor — Babbei-, has its 

 concave side tuined to the Australian continent, whereas the inner 

 row is convex on that side. Again, the outer row exhibits outward 

 bends in the Tenimber-islands and the Kei-islands, just where 

 depressions occur in the "Vorland" (Australian Continent with Sahul 

 bank and Arafura sea). Tlie inner row does not bend in that way, 

 the curve progresses regulaily. 



A comparison of the two curving rows of islands of the East- 

 Indian archipelago will show, therefore, that the outer row has better 

 adapted itself to the shapes of the " Vorland" than the inner one. 



In the paper alluded to above we have compared the outward 

 bends of the outer row in the Kei- and Tenimber-islands with the 

 movement of the Pennine overthrust sheets of the Alps into the 

 lower parts of the hercynian mountains against which they were 

 forced upwards. The strong crustal movements in the miocene period 

 have been rather weak in the Kei-islands; the eocene is not intensely 

 folded in Groot-Kei, the miocene is not folded at all '), while farther 

 west the strata seem to be more strongly folded, as in a new island 

 near Ut (Klein Kei-group) contorted, approximately vertical strata 

 probably of eocene- mai-1 and limestone, were observed. This indicates 

 that the prolongation of the intensely folded and overthrust mountain 

 range of the Timor islands in the direction of Ceram, did not yet 

 show the marked outward bend near the Kei islands, and was 



1) H. A. Brouwkr, 1. c. Fig. 1. 



2) H. A. Brouwkr. Ueber Gebirgsbildung nnd Vulkanismus in de Molukken. 

 Geol. Rundschau VllI, 1917, p. 197. 



R. D. M. Vrrbkek, 1. c. p. 501. 



52* 



