TRUE VOLCANOES. 355 



The far-stretching group of the Soolo (Solo) Islands, which 

 are fully one hundred in number, and which connect Minda- 

 nao and Borneo, is partly volcanic, and partly intersected by 

 coral-reefs. Isolated unopened trachytic cone-shaped peaks 

 are indeed often called Vulcanes by the Spaniards. 



If we carefully examine all that lies to the south of the 

 fifth degree of north latitude (to the south of the Philippines) 

 between the meridians of the Nicobars and the northwest 

 of New Guinea, thus taking in the Sunda Islands, great and 

 small, 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 one 

 hundred and nine lofty fire-emitting mountains, and ten mud 

 volcanoes." This is not merely an approximate calculation, 

 but an actual enumeration. 



Borneo, the Giava Maggiore of Marco Polo,* 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 

 northwest 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 southeastern point in 

 the district of Banjermas-Sing, on account of the gold, dia- 

 mond, and platinum washings). It is not even believed that 

 the highest mountain of the whole island, and perhaps even 

 of the whole South Asiatic island world, the double-peaked 



Hofmann, Geogn. Beob. aufder Reise von Otto v. Kotzebue, p. 70 ; Leop. 

 de Buch, Description Physique des lies Canaries, p. 435-439. See the 

 large and admirable chart of the Islas Filipinas, by the Pilot Don An- 

 tonio Morati (Madrid, 1852), in two plates. 



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

 (Sumatra), where he remained for five months, and where he de- 

 scribes the elephants, which were not to be found in Java itself (Hum- 

 boldt, Examen Grit, de VHist. de la Geogr., t. ii., p. 218), from what he 

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

 nai, che bene lo sanno, e fisola piit 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 also did Martin Behaim on the Niirnberg globe of 1492, and Johann 

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

 portant for the history of the discovery of America.) 



