6 



THE MALAY ARCHIFELAGO. 



[chat. 1. 



Tiiey are about forty-five in number, and many of them 

 exhibit TiTOst beautiful examples oi' the volcanic cono on a 

 large scale, single or double, with entii'e or truncated 

 summits, and averagiug 10,000 feet high. 



It is now well ascertained that almost all volcanoeB 

 have been slowly buUt up by the accumulation of matter 

 — mud, ashes, and lava — ejected by themselves. The 

 opeiuugs or craters, however, frequently shift their posi- 

 tion ; so that a country may be covered with a more or 

 less irregular series ot hills in chains and masses, only 

 here and there rising into lofty cones, ajid yet the whole 

 may be produced by true volcanic action. In this manner 

 the greater pait of Java has been formed. There has been 

 some elevation, especially on the south coast, wliere ex- 

 tensive cliffs of coral limestone axe found ; and there may 

 be a substnitura of older stratified rocks; but still essentially 

 Java is volcanic ; and that noble and fertile island — the 

 very garden of the East, and perhaps upon the whole the 

 richest, the best cultivated, and the best governed tropical 

 island in the world — owes its very existence to the same 

 intense volcanic activity which still occasionally devastates 

 its surface. 



The great island of Sumatra exhibits in proportion to 

 its extent a much smaller number of volcanoes, and a 

 considerable portion of it has probably a non-volcanic 

 origin. 



To the eastward, the long string of islands from Java, 

 passing by the north of Timor and away to Banda, are 

 probably aU due to volcanic action. Timor itself consists 

 of ancient stratified rocks, but is said to have one volcano 

 near its centre. 



Going northward, Amboyna, a part of Boimi, and the 

 w^est end of Ceram, the north paii of Gilolo, and all the 

 small islands araund it, the northern extremity of Celebes, 

 an<i the islands of Bian and Sanguir, are wholly volcanic. 

 The Pliilippine Archipelago contains many active and 

 extinct volcanoes, and has probably been reduced to its 

 present fragmentary condition by subsidences attending 

 on volcanic action. 



AU along tliis great line of volcanoes are to be found 

 more or less palpable signs of upheaval and depres- 



