388 COSMOS. 



to the coasts of Malacca and Tenasseriin, run into the 

 eastern portion of the Bay of Bengal. Along the shores of 

 Orissa and Coromandel, the eastern portion of the bay is 

 destitute of islands, the great island of Ceylon bearing, like 

 that of Madagascar, more of the character of a continent. 

 Opposite the western shore of the Indian peninsula (the 

 elevated plain of Neilgherry and the coasts of Ganara and 

 Malabar) a range of three archipelagos lying in a direction 

 from north to south, and extending from 14 north to 8 

 south latitude (the Laccadives, the Maldives, and the Chagos) 

 is connected by the shallows of Sahia de Malha and Car- 

 gados Carajos with the volcanic group of the Mascareignes 

 and Madagascar. The whole of this chain, so far as can be 

 seen, is the work of coral-polypes, true Atolls, or lagoon- 

 reefs ; in accordance with Darwin's ingenious conjecture 

 that at this part a large extent of the floor of the ocean 

 forms, not an area of upheaval, but an area of subsidence. 



VIII. THE SOUTH SEA, OR PACIFIC. 



If we compare that portion of the earth's surface now 

 covered with water with the aggregate area of the terra 

 firma, (nearly 82 in the proportion of 2.7 to 1), we cannot but 

 be astonished in a geological point of view at the small 

 number of volcanoes which still continue active in the 

 oceanic region. The South Sea, the superficies of which is 

 nearly one-sixth greater than that of the whole terra firma 

 of our planet, which in the equinoctial region, from the 

 archipelago of Galapagos to the Pellew Islands, is nearly 

 two-fifths of the whole circumference of the earth in breadth, 

 exhibits fewer smoking volcanoes, fewer openings through 

 which the interior of the planet still continues in active 

 communion with its atmospheric envelope than does the 

 single island of Java. Mr. James Dana, the talented geo- 

 logist of the great American exploring expedition (1838 

 1842), under the command of Charles Wilkes, basing his 

 views on his own personal investigations, aided by a careful 

 comparison of all previous reliable observations, and espe- 



82 The result of Prof. Rigaud'a " weighings " at Oxford, according to 

 Halley'a old method. See my Asie Centrale, t. i, p. 189. 



