MALAYSIA AND THE PACIFIC ARCHIPELAGOES 5 



in any of the other divisions of the globe, except, per- 

 haps, Asia. The most striking contrasts of geological 

 structure are exhibited by the coral islands of the Pacific, 

 the active volcanoes of the Malay islands, and the ex- 

 tremely ancient rocks of New Zealand and Tasmania, 

 The most opposite aspects of vegetation are presented 

 by the luxuriant forests of the Moluccas and New 

 Guinea, and the parched ground and thorny thickets of 

 the Eastern Sunda Islands. 



Where the land surface is so much broken up into 

 islands, we cannot expect to find any of the more promi- 

 nent geographical features which characterise large con- 

 tinents, and hence there are nowhere great lakes or 

 rivers of large size. Mountains are numerous, but are 

 for the most part volcanic, and are much higher in the 

 islands than on the continent of Australia. In such 

 remote localities as Sumatra, Borneo, the Sandwich Islands, 

 and New Zealand, there are mountains which do not 

 fall far short of 14,000 feet. Of the snow-covered 

 Charles Louis range in Dutch New Guinea we have as 

 yet no very trustworthy information, but there is little 

 doubt that its peaks attain a very much greater eleva- 

 tion. 



4. Ocean Depths 



The land and water of the earth's surface is so un- 

 equally distributed that it is possible to divide the globe 

 into two equal parts, in one of which — the land hemi- 

 sphere—land and water shall be almost exactly equal, 

 while in the other— the water hemisphere — there shall 

 be nearly eight times as much water as land. The centre 

 of the former is in St. George's Channel, and of the latter 

 at a spot some 600 miles S.S.E. of New Zealand. 



