ON ITS EXTERIOE. VOLCANOES. 351 



island of Formosa as the turning point where the Kurile 

 N.E.S. W. direction is followed by a N. S. one, so we 

 may, in like manner, point to a new fissure-system as 

 commencing to the south of Celebes and Borneo whose 

 southern coast is cut east and west. The greater and 

 lesser Sunda islands from Timor-Laut to West-Bali 

 follow for the most part the mean parallel of 8 S. lat., 

 through eighteen degrees of longitude. In the west 

 part of Java the middle axis already turns rather more 

 towards the north, running almost E.S.E. W.N.W., but 

 from the Straits of Sunda to the southernmost of the 

 Nicobars the direction is S.E. N.'W. The entire vol- 

 canic fissure of elevation (E. W. and S.E. KW.) 

 has, according to this, an extent of about 2700 geogra- 

 phical miles, or eleven times the length of the Pyre- 

 nees ; of the whole distance, if we disregard the slight 

 deviation in Java towards the north, 1620 miles belong 

 to the east and west, and 1080 to the south-east and 

 north-west direction. 



In this manner, geological considerations on form and 

 arrangement conduct us uninterruptedly through the 

 islands of the eastern coast of Asia, over the enormous 

 space of 68 degrees of latitude, from the Aleutian 

 islands and the northern sea of Bering to the Moluccas 

 and the greater and lesser Sunda Isles. It is especially 

 in the zone comprised between 5 N. and 10 S. latitude 

 that the most abundant variety of configuration of land 

 has been developed. The directions of the lines of out- 

 burst or elevation of the larger parts are most frequently 

 seen repeated in a remarkable manner in neighbouring 

 small ones. Thus, near the south coast of Sumatra, we 

 have a long row of islands parallel to it. We may 



