3IO PHYSIOGRAPHY. [chap. 



Malay archipelago, are separated, between Bali and Lombok, 

 by a narrow, but deep, channel from the Papuan Islands, of 

 which New Guinea is the largest. Separated from it only by 

 the narrow straits of Torres, is the sub continental land of 

 Australia, which has an area of 4,700,000 square miles 

 (LII.), and therefore is considerably larger than Europe 

 (3,775,400 square miles, XLII.) ; and this, again, is divided 

 only by a narrow strait, that of Bass, from Tasmania. 

 Nearly parallel with the east coast of Australia, but more than 

 a thousand miles distant from it, is a great chain of islands, 

 beginning near New Guinea, with New Britain and the 

 Solomon islands ; and, with a great break to the south of 

 New Caledonia, ending in the islands of New Zealand. 



These islands stand in the same sort of relation to the 

 great dry-land area of Australia, as the Japanese and Philip- 

 pine islands, of which they are, in a sense, the continuation, 

 do to that of Asia. Be3'ond them, to the eastward, a broad 

 zone of the Pacific ocean is dotted over with the small islands 

 of Polynesia. 



On looking at a map of the land area which has now been 

 described Fig. 91), it is obvious, that the chief part of it lies 

 in the north, and that it tends to thin out into pointed, or 

 broken, masses towards the south. The Malay and Papuan 

 islands, with Australia on the east, as it were, balance Africa 

 on the west ; and if we regard them, for the moment, as 

 south-eastern continuations of Eurasia, answering to its south- 

 western continuation in Africa ; it will be seen, that the 

 eastern coast-line is broadly parallel to the western. In the 

 northern parts, the western coast is convex to the west, and 

 the eastern concave to the east ; while, in the southern 

 parttf, the western coast is concave, and the eastern, convex. 



Seventeen hundred miles of sea separate the westernmost 

 part of the British Islands from another, considerably smaller. 



