120 RELICS OF SUBMERGED ISLANDS. 



recent geological periods the area of the Indian Ocean was, 

 in part at least, occupied by a considerable extent of land, of 

 which Madagascar, and the Mascarene, and other groups are 

 the relics, the strange relationships of the animal life of these 

 islands appearing to require some such link between Mada- 

 gascar and the more easterly regions of the world. This 

 supposition is borne out to a great extent by the deep-sea 

 soundings recently made (although certainly not to the full 

 extent of the supposed requirements), for an examination of 

 the chart shows that there was probably a large island to 

 the north-east of Madagascar, nearly as large as Madagascar 

 itself, but of a longer shape, curving round to the north-west, 

 something like a boomerang in outline, and with its north- 

 western end about as far from the northern point of Mada- 

 gascar as the latter is from the African coast (about 260 

 miles). Of this former island the Amirante and Seychelles 

 groups form the relics of the northern portion, and the Car- 

 gados Garayos shoals and islets of the southern end. Then 

 there would seem to have been an island considerably larger 

 than Ceylon, about half-way between the boomerang-shaped 

 island just described and India, whose position is indicated 

 by the Chagos group ; while the soundings indicate probably 

 another long island about the size of Sumatra, lying in much 

 the same contiguity to south-west India as Sumatra does 

 to the Malay Peninsula. Of this island, the Maldive and 

 Laccadive islets alone now lift their heads above the waves. 

 South-east of these, a very deep sea, 1 5,000 feet deep, probably 

 indicates a very ancient physical feature of this part of the 

 globe, and shows that in all the more recent geological 

 epochs at least, an ocean of profound depth has separated the 

 region occupied by the islands just described from the Malayan 

 and Australian regions. It appears to me that these former 

 physical conditions of portions of the area of the Indian 

 Ocean, give some probable clue as to the path along which 

 Madagascar received from the far eastern archipelagoes the 

 ancestors of its present population. 



Still another question occurs, as to which again we can 

 only put forward some slight hints towards a solution, viz., 

 the question of date : At what period did these immigrants 



