THE ISLANDS AND THEIR POPULATION 21 
It is true that an eastward advance of the brown 
Mongoloids has carried them a short distance beyond 
the channels that separate the two continental areas. 
Celebes, although in the Australian half of the Indies, 
is Malaysian in race; so are parts of the Moluccas, and 
at least the western end of the island chain that stretches 
from Java towards New Guinea. At these points, then, 
the human distribution has come to deviate somewhat 
from that of the lower animals and plants and the geo- 
logical formations. But the areas in question are not 
very large, and after every allowance is made the cor- 
respondence of the human factor with the geological, 
floral, and faunal ones is much more significant than the 
discrepancies. 
Even religion and type of customs have tended to 
coincide rather closely with the geographical line of 
division. Mohammedanism has spread about as far 
eastward as the brown peoples, but has been most 
deeply implanted in the islands of the Asiatic continen- 
tal area. At an earlier period, Hinduism penetrated to 
about an equal distance. Yet the islands in which the 
influence of India was really powerful, as attested by the 
ruins in Hindu style of architecture and sculpture, are 
precisely those which belong with Asia: namely, 
Sumatra, Borneo, Java. Celebes and the other islands 
of the Australian half of the East Indies contain no such 
remains. 
The Philippines lie to the north of all the other East 
Indies and virtually in the deep-water channels which 
separate the two continental areas. Since two series of 
islands connect them with Borneo, which is Asiatic; 
a third with Celebes, which belongs with Australia; 
and a fourth chain links them with Formosa, close to 
China, it is conceivable that the natural history con- 
nections of the Philippines might be either predomi- 

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