ON ITS EXTEKIOK. YOLCANOES. 349 



5. East Asiatic Islands. 



From Torres Strait, which in 10 S. lat. divides New 

 Guinea from Australia, and from the smoking volcanoes 

 of Flores to the north-easternmost Aleutian Islands in 55 

 N. lat., there extends an island world, which is for the 

 greater part volcanic, and which, when regarded in a ge- 

 neral geological point of view by reason of its genetical 

 connection, cannot very easily be separated into single 

 groups, and of which the area widens considerably 

 towards the south. Beginning in the north and pro- 

 ceeding from the American peninsula Alaska, we see 

 the bow-shaped curvature of the range of Aleutian 

 Islands ( 484 ), uniting, through the island of Attu which 

 is near Copper and Bering's Islands, the old and the new 

 continent ; and, as it were, enclosing Bering's sea by a 

 boundary towards the south. If we, further, proceed 

 southwards from Cape Lopatka, the extremity of the 

 peninsula of Kamtschatka, we have first the Kurile 

 Islands, forming the eastern boundary of the sea of 

 Saghalin or Ocho-tsk, which La Perouse rendered cele- 

 brated; next Jezo, which perhaps was once connected 

 with the southern point of the island of Krafto ( 485 ) 

 (Saghalin or Tschoka) ; and lastly, beyond the narrow 

 straits of Tsugar, the three islands which form the 

 Japanese empire (Nippon, Sikok, and Kiusiu, lying, 

 according to Siebold's excellent map, between 41 32' 

 and 30 18' N. latitude). From the volcano of Kliu- 

 tschewsk, the northernmost one on the east coast of the 

 Kamtschatkan peninsula, to the southernmost Japanese 

 island-volcano of Iwoga-Sima in the strait of Van Die- 



