MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. 231 
tribution of living things on the surface of the earth is 
mainly the result of the last series of changes that it has 
undergone. Geology teaches us that the surface of the 
land and the distribution of land and water is every- 
where slowly changing. It further teaches us that the 
forms of life which inhabit that surface have, during 
every period of which we possess any record, been also 
slowly changing. As to the Malay Archipelago, we find 
that all the wide expanse of sea which divides Java, 
Sumatra, and Borneo from each other, and from Malacca 
and Siam, is so shallow that ships can anchor in any 
part of it, since it rarely exceeds forty fathoms in depth: 
and if we go as far as the line of a hundred fathoms, we 
shall include the Philippine Islands and Bali, east of 
Java. If, therefore, these islands have been separated 
from each other and the continent, by subsidence of the 
intervening tracts of land, we should conclude that the 
separation has been comparatively recent, since the 
depth to which the land has subsided is so small—But 
it is when we examine the zoology of these countries 
that we find what we most require—evidence of a very 
striking character that these great islands must have 
once formed a part of the continent, and could only have 
been separated at a very recent geological epoch. The 
elephant and tapir of Sumatra and Borneo, the rhino- 
ceros of Sumatra and the allied species of Java, the 
wild cattle of Borneo and the kind long supposed to be 
peculiar to Java, are now all known to inhabit some 
part or other of Southern Asia. None of these large 
animals could possibly have passed over the arms of the 
sea which now separate these countries, and their presence 
plainly indicates that a land communication must have 
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