MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. 



233 



conclude it to have been the most recently dismembered 

 island. 



" The Philippine Islands agree in many respects with 

 Asia and the other islands, but present some anomalies 

 to indicate that they were separated at an earlier period, 

 and have since been subject to many revolutions in their 

 physical geography. 



" Turning our attention now to the remaining portion 

 of the Archipelago, we shall find that all the islands, 

 from Celebes to Lombock eastward, exhibit almost as 

 close a resemblance to Australia and New Guinea as the 

 Western Islands do to Asia. It is well known that the 

 natural productions of Australia differ from those of Asia 

 more than those of any of thfe four ancient quarter's of 

 the world differ frorh each other. Australia, in fact, 

 stands alone; it possesses no apes or monkeys, no cats 

 or tigers, wolves, bears, or hyenas, no deer or antelopes, 

 sheep or oxen, no elephant, horse, squirrel or rabbit; 

 none, in short, of those familiar types of quadruped which 

 are met with in every other part of the world. Instead 

 of these, it has Marsupials only, kangaroos and opossums, 

 wombats and the duck-billed platypus. In birds it is 

 almost as peculiar. It has no woodpeckers and no 

 pheasants, families which exist in every other part of 

 the world; but instead of them it has the mound-making 

 brush-turkeys, the honeysuckers, the cockatoos, and the 

 brush-tongued lories, which are found nowhere else upon 

 the globe. All these striking peculiarities are found also 

 in those islands which form the Austro-Malayan division 

 of the Archipelago. 



" The great contrast between the two divisions of the 

 Archipelago is nowhere so abruptly exhibited as on 



