Introduction: Wallace's line. §^ 



Survey, vol. IV, 363 — 377), is one of the few earlier zoologists who do not recoo-- 

 nise Wallace's line. His Indian Region, being part of the Indo-African Realm 

 has for its eastern frontier a line drawn west of the Moluccas and Aru. He 

 says (p. 358): "I fail to see any good reason for assigning Celebes and all the 

 smaller Sunda Islands to the Papuan Province, as Mr. Wallace and others 

 have done, but abundant evidence that such is not their real affinity." And 

 p. 364: "The Australian Realm will be here restricted so as so embrace none 

 of the islands situated to the westward of the Moluccas."') His Insular or Ma- 

 layan Province forms part of the Indian Region; it includes all the Sunda 

 Islands, the Philippines and Celebes. His Papuan Province (p. 367) takes in 

 the Molucca and Aru Islands to the west, but he considers the Molucca Group 

 (p. 364) to be a transitional link between the Indo-African and the Australian 

 Realm, faunistically more loosely allied to the latter than to the former. 



K. Semper, 1880, in his work: "Die natiirlichen Existenzbedingungen der 

 Thiere" (H, 136), discussed the problem fully. Though he found that facts do 

 not speak everywhere in favour of Wallace's line, he was nevertheless inclined 

 to adopt it in a general way; he explained the differences of the faunas to the 

 east and west not, however, by former land-connections, but by the sea-currents 

 transporting the animals, a hypothesis which, as far as we are aware, has not 

 been accepted elsewhere. 



O. Kriimmel, in 1882, published (see: Ztschr. wiss. Geogr. Ill, 1, Taf. I) 

 an important map: "Tiefenkarte des australasiatischen Mittelmeeres", on which 

 he drew the line, but remarked (p. 2) that the depths of the Macassar Straits 

 are quite insufficiently known and (jj. 3) that in the Straits of Lombok 

 only one sounding very near the coast of Bali, which was broken off 

 at 50 fathoms, serves as a basis for the assertion that a deep gap in 

 the chain of islands exists here! He further mentioned (j). 5) that there 

 are no soundings whatever known from the three large gulfs of Celebes. 



K. Martin, in a lecture on the "Wissenschaftlichen Aufgaben, welche der 

 geologischen Erforschung des Indischen Archipels gestellt sind", held in Leyden 

 in the year 1883, considered the line entirely erroneous. In his opinion (p. 28) 

 the continental frontier between Asia and Australia is approximately identical 

 with the chain of volcanoes in the Archipelago. The same author says in a 

 paper: "Die wichtigsten Daten unserer geologischen Kenntniss vom nieder- 

 landisch Ost-indischen Archipel" (see: Bijdr. taal-, land- en volkenkunde Ned. 

 Ind. uitg. ter gelegenheid van het 6. intern. Congress der Orientalisten te Leiden, 

 Land- en Volkenkunde. 1883, 27): "As far as our knowledge of to-day goes, 

 AVallace's line is geologically unjustifiable. . . . Nothing hinders us from drawing 



•) Previously (Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. Cambridge, 1870—71, n, p. 381) Mr. Allen had uttered the follow- 

 ing opinion: "The Australian Realm embracing Australia. New Zealand, New Guinea and their dependent 

 islands, including those to the eastward p] as far as Timor and Celebes, is zoologically as tlistinct . . ." This 

 is not at all clear to us, but as this prominent -m-iter later (see above; was quite intelligible, it is not necessai-y 

 to discuss his former intimation. 



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