chap, i.] PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 1 3 



eastward in Timor-laut and the Ke Islands, a moister 

 climate prevails, the south-east winds blowing from the 

 Pacific through Torres Straits and over the damp forests 

 of New Guinea, and as a consequence every rocky islet is 

 clothed with verdure to its very summit. Further west 

 again, as the same dry winds blow over a wider and 

 wider extent of ocean, they have time to absorb fresh 

 moisture, and we accordingly find the island of Java 

 possessing a less and less arid climate, till in the extreme 

 west near Batavia rain occurs more or less all the year 

 round, and the mountains are everywhere clothed with 

 forests of unexampled luxuriance. 



Contrasts in Depth of Sea. — It was first pointed out by 

 Mr. George "Windsor Earl, in a paper read before the Eoyal 

 Geographical Society in 1845, and subsequently in a 

 pamphlet " On the Physical Geography of South-Eastern 

 Asia and Australia," dated 1855, that a shallow sea con- 

 nected the great islands of Sumatra, Java, and Borneo 

 with the Asiatic continent, with which their natural pro- 

 ductions generally agreed ; while a similar shallow sea 

 connected New Guinea and some of the adjacent islands 

 to Australia, all being characterised by the presence of 

 marsupials. 



We have here a clue to the most radical contrast in the 

 Archipelago, and by following it out in detail I have 

 arrived at the conclusion that we can draw a line among 



