MALAYSIA, or THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO 
CHAPTER II 
GENERAL FEATURES 
1. Geographical Outline. 
Of all the great island groups of the globe, the richest in 
every respect is the Malay Archipelago, lying between 
Southern Asia and Australia, and made up of fragments 
of the two continents, although now forming a distinct 
geographical unit. There is every reason to believe that 
Asia and Australia were united during the latter part of 
the Secondary epoch, while the processes of subsidence 
and upheaval resulting in the present insular formations 
were not fully developed till a much later period. The 
Australian continent was probably first broken up, as 
indicated by the very deep seas which now separate the 
several islands of the Moluccas from each other; while 
the Asiatic continent may have remained longer entire, 
and its comparatively recent subsidence is equally well 
shown by the very shallow sea—always under fifty fathoms 
deep—which separates the great islands of Java, Sumatra, 
and Borneo from each other and from the mainland of 
Southern Asia. The extensive submarine plateau comes 
