440 



GEOGRAPHICAL EXPLORATIONS. 



survey the islands, and select a suitable place 

 for a penal colony, published, in 1863, a narra- 

 tive of his voyage of discovery, under the title 

 of " Adventures and Researches among the An- 

 daman Islands." He found the islands covered 

 ' with the most luxuriant vegetation ; the trees 

 equalling in girth the giant sequoias of Califor- 

 nia (one of them was seventy-six feet in cir- 

 cumference at the top), and belonging mostly 

 to the mangrove and banian families. Exten- 

 sive marshes in some sections sent up their 

 deadly exhalations, but at other points the isl- 

 ands seemed healthful. They saw but few of 

 the natives, but when they did meet them, a 

 combat always followed. In one of these skir- 

 mishes they took a young Andaman prisoner. 

 He was about twenty-two years of age, and 

 after a tune seemed to become partially civil- 

 ized, but it was impossible to obtain any infor- 

 mation from him respecting his former mode 

 of life. After some months he was attacked 

 with cholera, and though he recovered from 

 the attack itself, he did not regain his vigor, 

 and it was resolved to send him back to his 

 native island. Here he was left, but nothing 

 more was ever heard from him. 



Rev. Charles Parish, who also visited these 

 islands a little after Dr. Mouat's expedition, 

 has given an account of them in the Proceed- 

 ings of the Royal Geographical Society, and 

 M. Pihau-Dufeillay, who explored the South 

 Andaman, has communicated to the Bulletin de 

 la Societe Anthropologique a paper in regard to 

 the inhabitants of the islands. 



The Malayan Archipelago, with its numer- 

 ous islands, many of them of great size, and en- 

 titled, from its great extent, to be regarded as 

 almost a continent of itself, has been made the 

 subject of some very interesting investigations 

 by Mr. A. R. Wallace, an eminent traveller and 

 physicist, who has spent many years in the isl- 

 ands of the archipelago. Mr. Wallace com- 

 municated a paper to the Royal Geographical 

 Society, and to the British Association, in rela- 

 tion to its physical geography. He regards it 

 as divisible into two districts, having entirely 

 distinct lines of demarcation, the one assimilat- 

 ing to the Flora and Fauna of Asia, and the 

 other to the very diverse productions, animal 

 and vegetable, of Australia. These two dis- 

 tricts, at the little islands of Baly and Lom- 

 bock, are brought very near together; being 

 separated only by a strait fifteen miles wide; 

 yet on the one island the birds and plants are 

 not only of different species from those in 

 the other, but of different genera and families. 

 Java, apart of Sumatra, Amboyna, Sumbawa, a 

 part of Bornon, the west end of Ceram, tho 

 north part of Gilolo, and all the small islands 

 around it, the northern extremity of Celebes, 

 and the islands of Siau and Sanguir, are whol- 

 ly volcanic, as is also the greater part of the 

 Philippine group. The remainder of tho Ma- 

 layan Archipelago is generally free from vol- 

 canic action. Sumatra, New Guinea, Borneo, 

 the Philippines, the Moluccas, and the unculti- 



vated parts of Java and Celebes, are all forest 

 countries, but Timor, and the smaller islands 

 near it, and to a lesser degree Flores, Sumba- 

 wa, Lombock, and Bali, are mainly destitute 

 of forest trees. The monsoons or trade winds 

 are deflected in their course by the islands, and, 

 while the southern part of Borneo and Celebes 

 have a southeast monsoon and fair weather, 

 from April to November, the northern part of 

 Borneo and the Philippine Islands have a south- 

 west monsoon, and rain during the same period. 



The publication by Melville, at Batavia, of 

 the magnificent atlas of the Dutch East In- 

 dies of Carnbee and Versteeg, is an interesting 

 event, as marking the advance of Batavia hi 

 civilization and intellectual culture. Dr. Bern- 

 stein, a Dutch naturalist, has been engaged for 

 two years past in an exploration of the natural 

 history of the Molucca islands, and Senor Sem- 

 per continues to publish interesting and in- 

 structive monographs on the islands of Luzon, 

 and in his later publications has given a very 

 full account of the aborigines of the island, 

 who are known as Negritos. The Spanish Gov- 

 ernment has caused the maps of the hydro- 

 graphical survey of the coasts of the Philippines 

 to be published. Mindanao, one of these isl- 

 ands, which is rich in vegetation as well as in 

 mineral wealth, has hitherto been partly inde- 

 pendent, but within the past year the Spanish 

 authorities have taken possession of the whole 

 island. A German statistician, Mr. Friedmann, 

 has published in the Zeitschrift fur Erdkunde, 

 a table of the population of the Dutch East In- 

 dies. The whole population is about 18 mil- 

 lions, of which 11,943,019 are inhabitants of 

 Java and Madura; 1,746,052 of Sumatra; 

 1,646,605 of Timor ; 886,683 of Dutch Borneo ; 

 471,061 of Palembang; 215,277 of Celebes, and 

 the small islands adjacent ; and the remainder 

 of the smaller islands. 



We complete our survey of the geographical 

 progress of Asia with a few words on what has 

 been done in India the past year. Geographi- 

 cal researches in that vast peninsula have been 

 incessant for many years past; now measuring 

 the Himalayas and watching their glaciers, 

 penetrating into the beautiful vales of Cash- 

 mere, or mounting to the lofty plateau of 

 Thibet, where amid a heat that scorches in 

 summer, and a cold that congeals the vitals 

 in tho winter, the worshippers of the Grand 

 Llama maintain their isolated existence; or 

 tracing the Indus, the Ganges, or the Brah- 

 maputra from their sources in the plateau be- 

 tween the Himalaya and the Kuen-Lun moun- 

 tains through tho gateways where they pass 

 southward between peaks never yet trodden by 

 human foot; or farther southward, seeking 

 amid the Vindhya, the Ghauts, or the Nilgherry 

 mountains, and the sources of the rivers which 

 flow down their slopes, the wonders of the 

 vegetable or the animal kingdom ; or once 

 more engaged in these practical labors of rail- 

 way survey and construction, or the laying out 

 of military roads, and the selection of suitable 



