364 COSMOS, 



(nearly* in the proportion of 2-7 to 1), we can not but be 

 astonished, in a geological point of view, at the small number 

 of volcanoes which still continue active in the oceanic region. 

 The South Sea, the superficies of which is nearly one sixth 

 greater than that of the whole terra firma of our planet 

 which in the equinoctial region, from the Archipelago of 

 Galapagos to the Pellew Islands, is nearly two fifths of the 

 whole circumference of the earth in brea'dth exhibits fewer 

 smoking volcanoes, fewer openings through which the inte- 

 rior of the planet still continues in active communion with 

 its atmospheric envelope than does the single island of Java. 

 Mr. James Dana, the talented geologist of the great American 

 exploring expedition (1838-1842), under the command of 

 Charles Wilkes, basing his views on his own personal investi- 

 gations, aided by a careful comparison of all previous reliable 

 observations, and especially by a comprehensive examination 

 of the different opinions on the forms, the distribution, and 

 the axial direction of the island groups, on the character of 

 the different kinds of rocks, and the periods of the subsidence 

 and upheaval of extensive tracts of the floor of the ocean, has 

 the indisputable merit of having shed a new light over the 

 .island world of the South "Sea. In availing myself of his 

 work, as well as of the admirable writings of Charles Dar- 

 win, the geologist of Captain Fitzroy's expedition (1832- 

 1836), without always particularizing them, I trust that the 

 high respect in which I have for so many years held those 

 gentlemen will secure me from the chance of having my mo- 

 tives misinterpreted. 



It is my intention to avoid altogether the divisional terms 

 of Polynesia, Micronesia, Melanesia, and Malaisia.| which are 



* The result of Prof. Rigaud's levelings at Oxford, according to Hal- 

 ley's old method. See my Asie Centrale, t. i., p. f89. 



t D'Urville, Voy. de lit Corvette ^Astrolabe, 1826-1829, Atlas, pi. i. 

 i 1st. Polynesia is considered to contain the eastern portion of the 

 South Sea (the Sandwich Islands, Tahiti, and the Tonga Archipelago ; 

 and also New Zealand) ; 2. Micronesia and Melanesia form the west- 

 ern portion of the South Sea ; the former extends from Kauai, the 

 westernmost island of the Sandwich group, to near Japan and the 

 Philippines, and reaches south to the equator, comprehending the Ma- 

 rians (Ladrones), the Carolinas and the Pellew Islands ; 3d. Melane- 

 sia, so called from its dark-haired inhabitants, bordering on the Malai- 

 sia to the northwest, embraces the small Archipelago of Viti, or Fee- 

 jee, the New Hebrides and Solomon's Islands ; likewise the larger isl- 

 ands of New Caledonia, New Britain, New Ireland, and New Guinea. 

 The terms Oceania and Polynesia, often so contradictory in a geograph- 

 ical point of view, are taken from Malte-Brun (1813) and from Lesson 

 (1828). 



