356 



COSMOS. 



Kina Bailu at the northern extremity, distant only thirty- 

 two geographical miles from the Pirate coasts, is a volcano. 

 Captain Belcher makes it 13,695 feet high, which is nearly 

 4000 feet higher than the Gunung Pasaraan (Ophir) of Su- 

 matra.* On the other hand Rajah Brooke mentions a much 

 lower mountain in the province of Sarawak, whose name, 

 Gunung Api (Fire Mountain in the Malay tongue), as well as 

 the scoriae which lie around it, lead to the conclusion that it 

 was once volcanically active. Large deposits of gold sand 

 between quartz veins, the abundance of tin washed down on 

 both shores of the rivers, and the feldspathic porphyryf of 

 the Carambo Mountains, indicate a great extenSion of what 

 are called primitive and transition rocks. According to the 

 only certain information which we possess from a geologist 

 (Dr. Ludwig Horner, son of the meritorious Zurich astrono- 

 mer and circumnavigator of the globe), there are found in 

 the southeastern portion of Borneo, united in several profita- 

 bly worked washings, precisely as in the Siberian Ural, gold, 

 diamonds, platinum, osmium, and iridium (but not yet palla- 

 dium). Formations of serpentine, euphotide, and syenite, ly- 

 ing in great proximity, belong to a range of rocks 3411 feet 

 high, that of the Ratuhs Mountains. { 



The still active volcanoes on the remaining three great 

 Sunda Islands are reckoned by Junghuhn as follows : On 

 Sumatra from six to seven, on Java from twenty to twenty- 

 three, on Celebes eleven, and on Flores six. Of the volca- 

 noes. of the island of Java we have already (see above page 

 281) treated in detail. In Sumatra, which has not hitherto 

 been completely investigated, out of nineteen conical mount- 

 ains of volcanic appearance there are six still active.^ Those 

 ascertained to be so are the following : The Gunung Indra- 

 pura, about 12,256 feet in height, according to angles of al- 

 titude measured from the sea^ and probably of equal height 

 with the more accurately measured Semeru or Maha-Meru, 



* Captain Mundy's chart (coast of Borneo Proper, 3847,) gives, it 

 is true, 14,000 English feet. See a doubt of this datum in Junghuhn's 

 Java, bd. ii., s. 580. The colossal Kina Bailu is not a conical mount- 

 ain. In shape it much more resembles the basaltic mountains which 

 occur under all latitudes, and which form a long ridge with two term- 

 inal summits. 



t Brooke's Borneo and Celrbes, vol. ii., p. 382, 384, and 386. 



X Horner, in the V^erhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap van 

 Kunsten en Wetenschappen, Deel xvii. (1839), s. 284; Asie Centrale, t. 

 ii., p. 534-537. H 



§ Junghuhn, Java, bd. ii., s. 809 (Battaldnder^d. i., S..39). 



