the very limited data afforded by the depth of the waters. Here the naturalist
steps in, and enables him to fill up this great gap in the past history of the earth.
One of the chief objects of my travels was to obtain evidence of this nature;
and my search after such evidence has been rewarded by great success, so that I
have been able to trace out with some probability the past changes which one of
the most interesting parts of the earth has undergone. It may be thought that the
facts and generalizations here given would have been more appropriately placed
at the end rather than at the beginning of a narrative of the travels which
supplied the facts. In some cases this might be so, but I have found it impossible
to give such an account as I desire of the natural history of the numerous islands
and groups of islands in the Archipelago, without constant reference to these
generalizations which add so much to their interest. Having given this general
sketch of the subject, I shall be able to show how the same principles can be
applied to the individual islands of a group, as to the whole Archipelago; and
thereby make my account of the many new and curious animals which inhabit
them both, more interesting and more instructive than if treated as mere isolated
facts.
Contrasts of Races.—Before I had arrived at the conviction that the eastern
and western halves of the Archipelago belonged to distinct primary regions of
the earth, I had been led to group the natives of the Archipelago under two
radically distinct races. In this I differed from most ethnologists who had before
written on the subject; for it had been the almost universal custom to follow
William von Humboldt and Pritchard, in classing all the Oceanic races as
modifications of one type. Observation soon showed me, however, that Malays
and Papuans differed radically in every physical, mental, and moral character;
and more detailed research, continued for eight years, satisfied me that under
these two forms, as types, the whole of the peoples of the Malay Archipelago
and Polynesia could be classified. On drawing the line which separates these
races, it is found to come near to that which divides the zoological regions, but
somewhat eastward of it; a circumstance which appears to me very significant of
the same causes having influenced the distribution of mankind that have
determined the range of other animal forms.
The reason why exactly the same line does not limit both is sufficiently
intelligible. Man has means of traversing the sea which animals do not possess;
and a superior race has power to press out or assimilate an inferior one. The
maritime enterprise and higher civilization of the Malay races have enabled them
to overrun a portion of the adjacent region, in which they have entirely
supplanted the indigenous inhabitants if it ever possessed any; and to spread