38 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



senting, in their extent, above fifty craters in fearful 

 activity. Disruption and submersion of what may 

 have been a continent, a kind of counterpart to South 

 America, may be surmised, by the shallowness of some 

 parts of the sea, and the exceeding inequality of the 

 submarine floor; the islands, great and small, appearing 

 like the subsisting ruins of a once united region, which 

 the straits of Malacca, Sunda, Bali, the Sea of Banda, 

 &c., have separated, from the effect of immense percus- 

 sions, originating at a great depth. No small confir- 

 mation to this supposition, is drawn from the frequent 

 identity of the two mammalogies, observed on the 

 islands and the neighbouring continent ; in several 

 cases, the species cannot, with any probability, be sup- 

 posed to have been transported, from one to the other, 

 by human intervention. Some of these are Pachy- 

 derms, common to both, and others of the same order, 

 of different species ; such as, 1st, large ruminants : 

 The Banting, Bos leucoprymnus ? Rusa, or Cervus 

 equinus, Elant of the Javanese Dutch. 2d, The Ele- 

 phant ? two or three species of Rhinoceros, a Tapir, and 

 many more. In the distribution of zoological species, 

 there is no other instance of great Pachyderms being 

 confined to insulated locations, and none where the same 

 species occur on two or more of them, and again on the 

 mainland of the next continent. They offer, therefore, 

 additional arguments in favour of the conclusion, that 

 in the earlier period of the existing zoology, all these 

 great islands formed part of the continent; and that 

 in one anterior to it, the connection extended to 



