The Present Condition of the Indian Archipelago. 349 



has covered tliem, and marked its tract with innumerablo islands. 

 That there is a real and not merely a fanciful connection between 

 the Archipelago and Asia is demonstrable, although, when we en- 

 deavour to trace its history, we are soon lost in the region of specu- 

 lation. So obvious is this connection, that it has been a constant 

 source of excitement to the imagination, which, in the traditions of 

 the natives, and in the hypotheses of Europeans, has sought its 

 origin in an earlier geographical unity. Certainly, if in the progress 

 of the elevatory and depressing movements which the region is pro- 

 bably undergoing even now, the land were raised but a little, we 

 should see shallow seas dried up, the mountain ranges of Sumatra, 

 Borneo, and Java, become continental like those of the Peninsula, 

 and great rivers flowing not only in the Straits of Malacca, whose 

 current early navigators mistook for that of an inland stream, but 

 through the wide valley of the China Sea, and by the deep and nar- 

 row Strait of Sunda, into the Indian Ocean. Thus the unity would 

 become geographical, which is now only geological. That the great 

 platform from which only mountains and hills rose above the sea- 

 level, till the materials drawn from them by the rains were rolled 

 out into the present alluvial plains, is really an extension of the 

 Asiatic mass, appears evident from the facts, amongst many others 

 which require a separate geological paper for their discussion, and 

 would be less readily appreciated by the general reader, that its di- 

 rection, as a whole, is that which a continuation of South-Eastern 

 Asia, under the same plutonic action which produced it, would pos- 

 sess ; — the mountain ranges, which form the latter, sink into it ir- 

 regularly in the lines of their longitudinal axes ; — in one zone, that 

 of the Peninsula, the connection is an actual geographical one ; — the 

 Peninsula is obviously continued in the dense clusters of islands and 

 rocks, stretching on the parallel of its elevation and of the strike of 

 its sedimentary rocks from Singapore to Banka, and almost touches 

 Sumatra, the mountain ranges of which are, notwithstanding, parallel 

 to it ; — Borneo and Celebes appear to represent the broader or east- 

 ern branch of the Indo-Chinese Peninsula, from which they are sepa- 

 rated by the area of the China Sea, supposed to be sinking; — and, 

 finally, nearly the whole Archipelago is surrounded by a great vol- 

 canic curve, rooted in Asia itself, and the continuity of which demon- 

 strates that the platform and the continental projection with which 

 it is geographically connected are really united at this day into one 

 geological region by a still vigorous power of plutonic expansiveness, 

 no longer, to appearance, forming hypogene elevations, but expend- 

 ing itself chiefly in tho numerous volcanic vents along the borders 

 where it sinks into the depths of the ocean. 



Whether the present platform ever rose above tho level of tho sea 

 and surrounded the new insular eminences with vast undulating 

 plains of vegetation, instead of a level expanse of water, we shall 

 not hero seek to decide, although we think that Rafilos, and others 



