156 On iome zoological Facts 



the extremities of the Austral world those bulwarks of gra- 

 nite which she seems desirous of opposing to the fury of 

 the boundless ocean. He soon arrives on the barren coasts 

 ot the west and north-west side of New Holkrid, where 

 the plwenomenon of the acquisitions made by the land pre- 

 sents itself with all the interest of which it is susceptible. 

 In vain does he pass alona; coasts of two or three hundred 

 leagues in extent ; he every where observes eternal downs 

 of white sand, which extend hito the country as far as one 

 can penetrate. The numerous islands he meets with exhibit 

 to him a similar constitution; and the banks of sand, so 

 frequent in these dangerous seas, have no other. But the 

 fertile mountains of Timor already begin to appear j an 

 eternal vegetation every where covers them with its rich 

 productions : they are continued in large gradations, which 

 rise more and more towards the interior of the land. Every 

 thing is new in its aspect : he no longer sees those lacerated 

 fonns, those blackened peaks, and those threatening craters 

 ofTeneriPre, and of the Isles of France and of Bourbon; 

 those striking and majestic masses of South Cape, Cape 

 Pele, and Cape Frederick- Hendeiick in \^aia Diemen's 

 Land ; much less that monotonous and tiresome aspect of 

 the sandy coasts of New Holland. None of these pictures 

 are applicable to the inountains of Timor. Their forms, 

 though large, are softened ; their prolongations are regular; 

 their summits are broad, and sink down gradually by slight 

 modulations, which disappear on the sea shore: in a word, 

 every thing announces here the tranquillity of the tropics, 

 and the peaceful action of nature and of time. 



Amidst objects so grand, with terms of comparison so 

 prodigious, the study of nature then more striking, is also 

 more easy : all the petty objects of detail, the modern effects 

 of a multitude of secondary causes, disappear, as we may 

 say, before the srand ensemble of nature, and cease to oc- 

 cupy in our annals the too important part which they 

 have been so many times made to perform. But we may 

 safely aflirm, that we shall have no real theory of the earth 

 lilt the glorious period when the sciences can reckon among 

 iheir votaries men desirous of emulating Humboldt. What 

 he has done in regard to America ought to be done in re- 

 gard to manv distant countries and so many archipelagos 

 still unknow'i. At the head of the latter appears New 

 Holland, an immense country, hitherto little explored, but 

 worthy of the attention of the governments much more than 

 the naturalists of Europe. 



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