. Island life; or, the phenomena and causes of insular faunas and floras, including a revision and attempted solution of the problem of geological climates. iderableamount of speciality; and, in its relations to the surroundingislands and the Asiatic continent, offers us some problems ofgreat interest and considerable difficulty. The accompanying map shows that Borneo is situated on theeastern side of a submarine bank of enormous extent, beingabout 1,200 miles from north to south, and 1,500 from east towest, and embracing Java, Sumatra, and the Malay vast area is all included wi
. Island life; or, the phenomena and causes of insular faunas and floras, including a revision and attempted solution of the problem of geological climates. iderableamount of speciality; and, in its relations to the surroundingislands and the Asiatic continent, offers us some problems ofgreat interest and considerable difficulty. The accompanying map shows that Borneo is situated on theeastern side of a submarine bank of enormous extent, beingabout 1,200 miles from north to south, and 1,500 from east towest, and embracing Java, Sumatra, and the Malay vast area is all included within the 100 fathom line, but byfar the larger part of it—from the Gulf of Siam to the JavaSea—is under fifty fathoms, or about the same depth as thesea that separates our own island from the continent. Thedistance from Borneo to the southern extremity of the MalayPeninsula is about 350 miles, and it is nearly as far from Sumatraand Java, while it is more than 600 miles from the SiamasePeninsula, opposite to which its long northern coast is, I believe, nowhere else upon the globe, an island so far I niAP. BORNEO AND JAVA. 349. MAP UF B(>RNK<. AM) JAVA, SHwWINC. IIIK GKKAT SLBMARINK BANK OF SOI 1 ASIA. The li^lit tint shows n less depth thnn TOO fathoms. The fi-iuos show tUf depth ut thf sea iu fntliouis 350 ISLAND LIFE. [part ii. from a continent, yet sejiarated from it by so shallow a changes of sea and land must have occurred here on agrand scale, and this adds to the interest attaching to the studyof this large island. The internal geography of Borneo is somewhat peculiar. Alarge portion of its surface is lowland, consisting of great alluvialvalleys which penetrate far into the interior ; while the moun-tains except in the north, are of no great elevation, and thereare no extensive plateaux. A subsidence of 500 feet would allowthe sea to fill the great valleys of the Pontianak, Banjarmassing,and Coti rivers, almost to the
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Keywords: ., bookauthorwallacealfredrussel18, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880
