‘Gade 
158 e On the Indian Archipelago. 
duced it, would possess; the mountain ranges which form the 
latter sink into it irregularly in the lines of the longitudinal axes ; 
—in one zone, that of the Peninsula, the connexion is an actua 
geographical one ;—the Peninsula is obviously continued in the 
; dense clusters of islands and rocks, stretching on the parallel of 
ie 
its elevation and of the strike of its sedimentary rocks, from Sin- 
gapore to Banka, and almost touches Sumatra, the mountain 
ranges of which are, notwithstanding, parallel to it ;—Borneo 
and Celebes appear to represent the broader or eastern branch of 
the Indo-Chinese Peninsula, from which they are separated by 
the area of the China Sea, supposed to be sinking; and finally, 
nearly the whole Archipelago is surrounded by a great volcanic 
which it is geographically connected are really united, at this day, 
into one geological region by a still vigorous power of plutonic 
expansiveness, no longer, to appearance, forming hypogene eleva- 
tions, but expending itself chiefly in the numerous volcanic vents 
along the borders where it sinks into the depths of the ocean. 
Whether the present platform ever rose above the level of the 
sea and surrounded the now insular eminences with vast undula- 
ting plains of vegetation, instead of a level expanse of water, we 
shall not here seek to decide, although we think that Raffles and 
others who have followed in his steps too hastily connected the 
there was, had subsided before they came into existence. No 
conclusive reasons have yet been adduced why we would con- 
sider the islands of the Archipelago as the summits of a partially 
submerged, instead of a partially emerged, continent. But 
whether it was the sinking of the continent that deluged all the 
southern lowlands of Asia, leaving only the mountain summits 
visible, or its elevation that was arrested by the exhaustion of the 
plutonic energy, or the conversion of its upheaving into an eject- 
ing action, on the opening of fractures along the outskirts of the 
region, before the feebler action there had brought the sea bed | 
into contact with the atmosphere, the result has been to form an 
