202 
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 
or 20 miles—well known to navigators as the Bangka 
Strait and as the chief highway for all shipping passing 
between the great islands of Borneo and Sumatra. 
Bangka is 138 miles in length, and has an area of nearly 
5000 square miles. It is comparatively sterile, is full of 
small valleys and swamps, and is everywhere covered with 
thick forest. Its surface is rugged and irregular, and a 
series of high hills not disposed in ranges runs through its 
whole length, parallel with and of similar character to those 
of the Malay Peninsula. The greatest heights attained 
are those of Mount Maras, 2760 feet, and the Parmasang 
Mountains, 1608 feet, but it is remarkable that, notwith¬ 
standing their low elevation, the summits of these hills 
are generally covered with clouds, which has caused their 
height to be much over-estimated by some writers. 
Like the islands of the Rhio-Lingga Archipelago, and 
like its near neighbour Blitong, Bangka is Peninsular in 
its affinities, not Sumatran. The formation is principally 
granitic, and in situations of less elevation there occurs 
the red ironstone clay (laterite) which forms so marked a 
feature of the landscape in Singapore and Ceylon. In 
the lowest lands is an alluvial formation, intermixed with 
sandstones and breccias, in which is found the tin for 
which the island is famous. Zoology bears out the 
evidences afforded by geology. Although so near Sumatra, 
all the large Carnivora are absent, except the Malay bear, 
and neither the elephant, rhinoceros, nor tapir exist. 
More remarkable is the occurrence of numerous peculiar 
species of birds and a squirrel, which differ from those of 
Sumatra and Borneo sometimes more than the species of 
those islands differ from each other. There is therefore 
every reason to suppose that Bangka was once a southern 
extension of the Malay Peninsula, from which it has been 
isolated by subsidence of the intervening land. The 
