MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. 23 1 



tribution of living things on the surface of the earth is 

 mainly the result of the last series of cliangcs that it has 

 undergone. Geology teaches us that the surface of the 

 land and the distribution of land and water is every- 

 wlicre slowly changing. It further teaches us that the 

 forms of life which inhabit that surface have, during 

 every period of which we possess any record, been also 

 slowly changing. As to the Malay Archipelago, we find 

 that all the wide expanse of sea which divides Java, 

 Sumatra, and Borneo from each other, and from Malacca 

 and Siam, is so shallow that ships can anchor in any 

 part of it, since it rarely exceeds forty fathoms in depth: 

 and if we go as far as the line of a hundred fathoms, we 

 shall include the Philippine Islands and Bali, east of 

 Java. If, therefore, these islands have been separated 

 from each other and the continent, by subsidence of the 

 intervening tracts ot land, we should conclude that the 

 separation . has been comparatively recent, since the 

 depth to which the land has subsided is so small. — But 

 it is when we examine the zoology of these countries 

 that we find wha.t w^e most require — evidence of a very 

 striking character that these great islands must have 

 once formed a part of the continent, and could only have 

 been separated at a very recent geological epoch. The 

 elephant and tapir of Sumatra and Borneo, the rhino- 

 ceros of Sumatra and the allied species of Java, the 

 v/ild cattle of Borneo and the kind long supposed to be 

 peculiar to Java, are now all known to inhabit some 

 ])art or other of Southern Asia. None of these large 

 animals could possibly have passed over the arms of the 

 sea which now separate these countries, and their presence 

 plainly indicates that a land communication must liave 



