566 E. C. ABENDANON 



no question of explaining them by contact metamorphism (although 

 it is certain that such metamorphism has taken place locally) . We 

 have here to deal with regional metamorphism of ancient date. 

 The total thickness of these schists cannot be estimated, even 

 approximately, but it is certainly some thousands of meters. Such 

 a thickness could not have resulted, in Celebes or in other islands 

 of the archipelago, from the sedimentary beds of the Tertiary or of 

 the Mesozoic. So we reach the conclusion that these rocks are 

 pre-Mesozoic. 



What is the tectonic relation between the crystalline schists of 

 Central Celebes and those of other parts of the archipelago ? 



Suess^ has remarked that Martin observed a large massif of 

 Archean rocks in the islands Boeroe and Ceram; it consists prin- 

 cipally of mica schists having an east-west strike. Similar rocks^ 

 having the same strike have been found, not only in the group of 

 the Peling-Misool islands,^ but also in the northwestern peninsula 

 of New Guinea, whereas the island of Roon (east of this peninsula) 

 is composed of gneiss. These data have led him to the hypoth- 

 esis'' that the islands Ceram and Boeroe are but the prolongation 

 of the central mountain ranges of New Guinea, whereas the group 

 of the Peling-Misool Islands and the northwestern peninsula of 

 New Guinea represent the foreland of the folded land situated 

 farther south. Suess makes of this foreland an old "massif" 

 (Vol. Ill, Part 3, p. 1036). He would make a geological entity of 

 the territory extending from Celebes to the little island Rossel, 

 southeast of the southeastern point of New Guinea, but he writes 

 (Vol. Ill, Part 3, p. 1035) : "L'enorme distance qui separe Celebes 

 de File Rossel (Louisiade), ainsi que les grandes lacunes dans nos 

 connaissances, ne permettent pas d'enoncer ici des resultats 

 certains." Further (Vol. Ill, Part i, p. 343): "On ne pent pas 

 dire de quelle fafon la chaine des iles orientees de I'E. a I'W. 

 (Obi, Taliabo, etc.) se prolonge a Celebes." 



^ La Face de la Terre, Vol. Ill, Part i, p. 317. 

 = Ibid., Vol. Ill, Part 3, p. 1033. 



^ Ibid., Vol. Ill, Part 3, p. 1036: "Des terrains anciens apparaissent dans ces 

 iles (de Taliabo a Misool), surmontes de couches mesozoiques non plissees." 

 ^ La Face de la Terre, Vol. Ill, Part i, p. 318 and Vol. Ill, p. 1035. 



