282 COSMOS. 



work just mentioned, although they cover three fifths of the 

 entire area of the island, especially in the southern parts. 

 In many districts of Java there occur, as the remains of 

 former widely-spread forests, fragments, from three to seven 

 feet in length, of silicified trunks of trees, which all belong to 

 the Dicotyledons. For a countiy in which at present an 

 abundance of palms and tree ferns grows, this is the more re- 

 markable, because in the Miocene tertiary rocks of the brown- 

 coal formation of Europe, where arborescent monocotyledons 

 no longer thrive, fossil palms are not unfrequently met with.* 

 By a diligent collection of the impressions of leaves and fos- 

 silized woods, Junghuhn has been enabled to give us, as the 

 first example of the fossil flora of a purely tropical region, 

 the ancient flora of Java, ingeniously elaborated by Goppert 

 from his collection. 



As regards the elevation to which they attain, the volca- 

 noes of Java are far inferior to those of the three groups of 

 Chili, Bolivia, and Peru, and even to those of the two groups 

 of Quito with New Granada, and of Tropical Mexico. The 

 maxima attained by these American groups are : For Chili, 

 Bolivia, and Quito, 21,000 to 23,000 feet, and for Mexico, 

 18,000 feet. This is nearly ten thousand feet (about the 

 height of JEtna) more than the greatest elevation of the vol- 

 canoes of Sumatra and Java. On the latter island the highest 

 still burning colossus is the Gunung Semeru, the culminating 

 point of the entire Javanese series of volcanoes. Junghuhn 

 ascended this in September, 1844; the average of his baro- 

 metric measurements gave 12,233 feet above the surface of 

 the sea, and consequently 1748 feet more than the summit 

 of -5tna. At night the centigrade thermometer fell below 

 6.2 .(43. 2 Fahr.). The old Sanscrit name of Gunung Se- 

 meru was Mahd-Mcru (the Great Meru) ; a reminiscence of 

 the time when the Malays received Indian civilization a 

 reminiscence of the Mountain of the World in the north, 

 which, according to the Mahabharata, is the dwelling-place 

 of Brahma, Vishnu, and the seven Devarschi.f It is rc- 



* Op. cit., bd. iii., P. 15.> and Goppert, Die Tertlar flora avf dcr Insel 

 Java nach den Entdeckungen von Fr. JungJtuhn (1854), s. 17. The ab- 

 sence of monocotyledons is, however, peculiar to the silicified trunks 

 of trees lying scattered upon the surface, and especially in the rivulets 

 of the district of Bantam ; in the subterranean carbonaceous strata, on 

 the contrary, there are remains of palm- wood, belonging to two genera 

 (Flabellaria and Amesoneurori). See Goppert, s. 31 and 35. 



fUpon the signification of the word Merit, and the conjectures 

 which Burnouf communicated to me regarding its connection with 



