TRUE VOLCANOES. 379 



email, and the Moluccas, we shall find as the result, given in 

 the great work of Dr. Junghuhn, that " in a circle of islands 

 which surround the almost continental Borneo, there are 

 109 lofty fire-emitting mountains, and 10 mud-volcanoes." 

 This is not merely an approximate calculation, but an actual 

 enumeration. 



Borneo, the Giava Maggiore of Marco Polo, 67 has hitherto 

 furnished us with no certain proofs of the existence of any 

 active volcano upon it ; but, indeed, it is only a few narrow 

 strips of the shore that we are acquainted with (on the 

 north-west side as far as the small coast- island of Labuan, 

 and as far as Cape Balambangan; on the west coast at 

 the mouth of the Pontianak ; and on the south-eastern 

 point in the district of Banjermas-Sing, on account of the 

 gold, diamond and platinum washings). It is not even be- 

 lieved that the highest mountain of the whole island, and 

 perhaps even of the whole South Asiatic island-world, the 

 double-peaked Kina Bailu at the northern extremity, dis- 

 tant only thirty-two geographical miles from the Pirate- 

 coasts, is a volcano. Captain Belcher makes it 13,695 feet 

 high, which is nearly 4000 feet higher than the Gunung 

 Pasaman (Ophir) of Sumatra. 68 On the other hand, Rajah 



6 ' Marco Polo distinguishes (Part iii, cap. 5 and 8) Giava Minore 

 (Sumatra), where he remained for five months, and where he describes 

 the elephants, which were not to be found in Java itself (Humboldt, 

 Examen. Grit, de VHist. de la Georg., t. ii, p. 218), from what he had 

 before described as Giava (Maggiore), la quale, secondo dicono i mari- 

 nai, che bene to sanno, e Visola piu grande che sia al mondo, (which 

 as the sailors say, who know it well, is the largest island in the world. 

 This assertion is even to this day true. From the outlines of the chart 

 of Borneo and Celebes by James Brooke and Captain Rodney Mundy, 

 I find the area of Borneo 51,680 square geographical miles, nearly 

 equal to that of the island of New Guinea, but only one-tenth of the 

 continent of New Holland. Marco Polo's account of the great quantity 

 of gold and treasure which the "Mercanti di Zaiton e del Mangi" ex- 

 ported from thence, shows that by Giava Maggiore he meant Borneo, 

 (as did also Martin Behaim on the Niirnberg globe of 1492, and Johann 

 Ruysch in the Roman edition of Ptolemy, dated 1508, which is so 

 important for the history of the discoveiy of America). 



68 Captain Mundy's chart (coast of Borneo Proper, 1847,) gives, it is 

 true, 14,000 English feet. See a doubt of this datum in Junghuhn's 

 Java, Bd. ii, s. 580. The colossal Kina Bailu is not a conical moun- 

 tain. In shape it much more resembles the basaltic mountains which 

 occur under all latitudes, and which form a long ridge with two 

 terminal summits. 



