CHAPTER III 



New Guinea— Its Position and Extent— Territorial Divisions— Mountain 

 Ranges— Numerous Rivers— The Papuans— The Discovery of New 

 Guinea— Early Voyagers-Spanish and Dutch— Jan Carstensz— 

 First Discovery of the Snow Mountains— William Dumpier in the 

 " Roebuck "—Captain Cook in the " Endeavour "—Naiuralisis and 

 later Explorers. 



The island of New Guinea or Papua lies to the East 

 of all the great islands of the Malay Archipelago and 

 forms a barrier between them and the Pacific Ocean. 

 To the South of it lies the Continent of Austraha 

 separated from it by the Arafura Sea and Torres Strait, 

 which at its narrowest point is less than a hundred 

 miles wide. To the East is the great group of the 

 Solomon Islands, while on the North there are no im- 

 portant masses of land between New Guinea and Japan. 

 The island lies wholly to the South of the Equator, 

 its most Northern point, the Cape of Good Hope in 

 the Arfak Peninsula, being 19' S. latitude. 



The extreme length of the island from E. to W. is 

 1490 miles, and its greatest breadth from N. to S. is 

 rather more than 400 miles. New Guinea is the largest 

 of the islands of the globe, having an area of 308,000 

 square miles (Borneo has about 290,000 square miles), 

 and it is divided amongst three countries roughly as 

 follows : Holland 150,000, Great Britain 90,000, and 

 Germany 70,000 square miles. The large territory of 



