212 Pickering on the Language and Inhabitants 
and the several islands together present a surface considerably 
larger than Europe. We have here, then, as has been justly 
observed, countries greater in extent than China and Hindostan 
together; Australia is larger than the Chinese empire, Borneo 
three times the size of Great Britain, and Sumatra larger than 
Great Britain and Ireland together. And these regions, says a 
well known geographer, “present in every quarter scenes adapted 
to move the most frigid imagination. Many nations are here 
found in their earliest infancy. The amplest openings have been 
afforded for commercial activity. Numberless valuable productions 
have been already laid under contribution to our insatiable luxury. 
Here many natural treasures still remain concealed from scientific 
observation. How numerous are the gulfs, the ports, the straits, 
the lofty mountains, and the smiling plains! What magnificence, 
what solitude, what originality, and what variety!” * 
What a field for philosophical research is here found in those 
mighty agents of nature, the volcanoes, which are more numerous 
than in any other part of the globe! The island of Java alone 
is said to contain at least fifteen, Sumatra has a number of them, 
the Philippine and Molucca Islands are full of them, and in the 
Sandwich Islands is found the very largest among the whole of 
those which are still in activity, having a crater of melted lava 
said to be 900 feet in diameter. 
In the animal kingdom it has been remarked, that the larger 
species of quadrupeds are found only in the larger islands, and 
that the smaller quadrupeds are comparatively few. The elephant, 
for example, is known only on the Peninsula, Sumatra, and the 
‘northeasterly part of Borneo; the tiger is said not to be found 
* Malte Brun’s Geography, Book LIII., Part I., Percival’s edition, vol. I., 
p. 556. . 
