NATURAL HISTORY OF 



THE MALAY SUB-TYPICAL STEM. 



PURSUING our course of investigation onwards towards 

 the east, we find, from a commencement somewhere on 

 the gorges of the Brahmaputra, where that mighty 

 stream turns towards the Ganges, an intermediate form 

 of Man ; one which, in a most remote period, was per- 

 haps seated farther to the north, about the sources of 

 the great rivers which rise to the eastward of that 

 stream. This stem now extends across the great pen- 

 insula of Indo-China, or has been propelled, by the 

 pressure of genuine Mongolic races and mixed Indo 

 tribes, not only to the extreme south of the peninsula, 

 but driven onwards, beyond sea, to the islands of 

 Australasia, to Madagascar, the Archipelagos of the 

 Pacific; and, it would seem, even to South America, 

 before that continent was visited by the great migra- 

 tions which came down the coast by the west of the 

 Cordilleras. Conquered on the mainland of Asia, tribes 

 of Malays, no doubt, reached the peninsula of Malacca 

 at a remote period, but not before Java and Sumatra, 

 Borneo and Celebes were detached from it; for not- 

 withstanding that the deep channels, extant in their 

 present waters, soundings, and shoals, spreading even 

 to the vicinity of Australia and New Guinea,* indicate 

 * Earl's Report in Journal of Geographical Sciences. 



