500 NATURAL HISTORY OF JAYA, &C» 



surveying the regular chain of islands, extending from the 

 southern Cape of Florida to the mouths of the Orinoco, as 

 exhibited on the map, to conclude that it originally formed 

 part of the American Continent, and that the encroach- 

 ments of the sea rKive left only the higher parts of the land, 

 as insular points, above its present level. But this hypothesis, 

 however simple and apparently satisfactory in itself, will be 

 found to accord very partially with the geological structure 

 of the different islands. Many of them are made up entirely 

 of vast accretions of marine organized substances; and others 

 evidently owe their origin to a volcanic agency, which is either 

 in some degree apparent at the present time, or else may be 

 readily traced by vestiges comparatively recent. There is 

 every reason to believe, however, that some of the islands are 

 really of contemporaneous formation with the adjacent parts 

 of the continent, from which the) have been disjoined by the 

 incursions of the sea, or by convulsions of nature, and it is 

 probably in those islands which contain primitive rocks, that 

 we are chiefly to look for a confirmation of this supposition. 



XII. 



Account of various specimens of Natural History brought 

 from the Island of Java, Madura, Bali, $c. ; by Mr. Le- 



SCHENAULT*. 



TWe author JlVJLR Leschenault was one of the scientific persons, who 

 Holland NeW 6ailed with captain Baudin, to investigate the natural history 

 of New Holland mid the adjacent countries. It is well known, 

 that most of those gentlemen died ; but the zeal and talents 

 of the survivors rendered this voyage one of the most inter- 

 esting to science, 

 leaves the ship Mr. Leschenault, being obliged to quit the ship at Timor, 

 at Tiiuor, and j n m ay, 1803, on account of sickness, went over to Java, and 

 repairsto ata. re p ii j re< j to Samarang, the chief seat of the Dutch govern- 

 ment, and less insalubrious than Batavia. Governor Engel- 



* Jonrn. de Phyf . vol. LXV, p. 406. 



hard, 



