346 COSMOS. 



ous action, as indicated in the numerous rents of the earth's 

 crust, is precisely from northeast to southwest. The range 

 is carried on by the island of Jakuno-Sima, on which a 

 conical mountain rises to the height of 5838 feet (1780 me- 

 tres), and which separates the two straits of Van Diemen 

 and Colnet — by the Linschote Archipelago of Siebold — by 

 Captain Basil Hall's sulphur island, Lung-Huang-Schan, and 

 by the small group of the Loo-choo and Majico-sima, which 

 latter approaches within a distance of 92 geographical miles 

 the eastern margin of the great island of the Chinese coasts, 

 Formosa or Tay-wan. 



Here at Formosa (N. lat. 25°-26°) is the important point 

 where, instead of the lines of elevation from N.E. to S.W. ' 

 those in the direction from north to south commence, and 

 continue nearly as fiir as the parallel 5° or 6° of southern lati- 

 tude. They are recognizable in Formosa and in the Philip- 

 pines (Luzon and Mindanao) over a space of fully twenty de- 

 grees of latitude, intersecting the coasts, sometimes on one 

 side and sometimes on both, in the direction of the meridian. 

 They are likewise visible on the east coast of the great isl- 

 and of Borneo, which is connected by the So-lo Archipelago 

 with Mindanao, and by the long, narrow island of Palawan 

 with Mindoro. So also in the western portions of the Cel- 

 ebes, with their varied outline, and Gilolo, and, lastly (which 

 is especially remarkable), in the longitudinal fissures on which, 

 at a distance of 1400 geographical miles eastward of the group 

 of the Philippines and in the same latitude, the range of vol- 

 canic and coral islands of Marian or the Ladrones have been 

 upheaved. Their general direction* is north, and 10° east. 



Having pointed out in the parallel of the carboniferous 

 island of Formosa the turning point at which the direction 

 of the Kuriles from N.E. to S.W. is changed to that from 

 north to south, I must now observe that a new system of fis- 

 sures commences to the south of Celebes and the south coasts 

 of Borneo, which, as we have already seen, is cut from east 

 to west. The greater and lesser Sunda islands, from Timor- 

 lant to West-Bali, follow chiefly for the space of 18° of longi- 

 tude, the mean parallel of 8° south latitude. At the western 



* Dana, Geology of the Pacific Ocean, p. 16. Corresponding with the 

 meridian lines of the southeast Asiatic island world, the shores of Co- 

 chin-China from the Gulf of Tonquin, those of Malacca from the Gulf 

 of Siam, and even those of New Holland south of the 25th degree of 

 latitude are for the most part cut oflF, as it were, in the direction from 

 north to south. 



