chap, ix.] IND0-2ULAY ISLANDS. 233 



level actually did take place ; and it is a matter of much 

 interest, both to the geologist and to the philosophic 

 naturalist, to he able to form some conception of the order 

 of those changes, and to understand how they may have 

 resulted in the actual distribution of animal life in these 

 countries ; — a distribution which often presents phenomena 

 so strange and contradictory, that without taking such 

 changes into consideration we are unable even to imagine 

 how they coidd have been brought about. 



