12 PACIFIC ISLANDS. 
confined, with few exceptions, to the latitudes within the tropical 
circles, 23 degrees 28 minutes either side of the equator. New Zea- 
land and a few associates on the south, and some small points north- 
west of the Hawaiian groups, are almost alone in exceeding these limits. 
A second fact, not less worthy of note, is found in the absence of 
islands, excepting an occasional one of small size, eight or ten in all, 
from the vicinity of the equator, between the Galapagos and the 
Carolines. This range of bare waters is more than 6000 miles long, 
or one-fourth the whole circumference of the globe; and it extends 
from five degrees south of the equator, to Hawaii, in latitude 19 
degrees north. 
The large area between the South American coast and the Pau- 
motus, a distance of three thousand miles, is another wide blank in 
the Pacific, and we may view it as continuing westward with the 
same width, between the south tropical and antarctic circles. The 
newly discovered lands of the antarctic, extensively explored by the 
Iixpedition, under the direction of its energetic commander, form the 
southern boundary of this open sea. 
These facts are left for the present with this mere mention. They 
have a bearing on the geological history and dynamics of the ocean, 
which will be considered in a future chapter. 
Arrangement of the groups of islands.—The epithet scattered, as 
applied to the islands of the ocean, conveys a very incorrect idea of 
their positions. ‘There is a system in their arrangement, as regular 
as in the mountain heights of a continent; and ranges of elevations 
are indicated, as grand and extensive as any continent presents. 
Even a cursory glance at a map is sufficient to discover a general 
linear course in the groups, (as was long since remarked by Malte 
Brun and other geographers,) and a parallelism even between those 
in distant parts of the ocean. Thus the Hawaiian Islands stretch 
Fakaafo or Union, Phaenix, Vaitupu or Ellice’s, Tongan or Friendly, and New Zealand. 
The Feejee Group is intermediate, philologically, between Melanesia and Polynesia. 
The second division, Melanesia, embraces the islands within twelve degrees of the north- 
east coast of New Holland. Starting from New Guinea, to which they are related, the 
groups are as follows :—Admiralty, New Britain, New Ireland, Salomon, Vanikoro, New 
Hebrides, New Caledonia, and Flinden’s Archipelago, together with many small islands 
distributed over the included area. 
The third division, Micronesia, comprises the Carolines, extending west and north to 
embrace the Pelews, the Ladrones, and some scattered islands beyond, and east and south 
to include the Radack, Ralick, and Tarawan or Kingsmill groups. 
