40 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



not for the admixture of other blood, hopes of amelio- 

 rating their condition would appear illusory. They 

 might be considered to form the centre of that antique 

 population, which alone occupied the southern hemis- 

 phere, before the diffusion of the bearded or Caucasian 

 man ; a population primevally formed to breathe and 

 multiply in the heated and moist atmosphere of tropical 

 swamps and forests, at a period when the great Sau- 

 rians and the now extinct Pachyderms existed; and 

 that their native region, extending far eastward in the 

 Pacific, had in great part subsided, leaving the islands 

 and their organic creation, the evident wreck of a for- 

 mer system of existence. 



EAST COAST OF ASIA. 



IT is off the east coast of this part of Asia, that the 

 main ramification of galleries passes from Japan to the 

 north, as far as Kamschatka, and to the south, by 

 several trunks, beneath the Bonin, Sulphur, Marian, 

 and Ladrone groups ; and again, by the Philippines, 

 Banda, &c., become connected with the great equatorial 

 centre of ignition in Java and the surrounding craters. 

 Although Chinese history commences with their deified 

 heroes, toiling to clear the upper provinces of lakes and 

 marshes, the sea, particularly between the main coast 

 and Formosa, by many geographical indications, sup- 

 ports the local tradition of submersions ; such as Mauri 

 Gasima, and other islands shown by the shoals, at the 



