Non-fiction
Corpus
1
,The Malay Archipelago
Alfred Russel Wallace
“Physical Geography.”
From a look at a globe or a map of the Eastern hemisphere, we shall perceive between
Asia and Australia a number of large and small islands forming a connected group
distinct from those great masses of land, and having little connection with either of
them. Situated upon the Equator, and bathed by the tepid water of the great tropical
oceans, this region enjoys a climate more uniformly hot and moist than almost any other
part of the globe, and teems with natural productions which are elsewhere unknown.
The richest of fruits and the most precious of spices are Indigenous here. It produces the
giant flowers of the Rafflesia, the great green-winged Ornithoptera (princes among the
butterfly tribes), the manlike Orangutan, and the gorgeous Birds of Paradise. It is
inhabited by a peculiar and interesting race of mankind — the Malay, found nowhere
beyond the limits of this insular tract, which has hence been named the Malay
Archipelago.
To the ordinary Englishman this is perhaps the least known part of the globe. Our
possessions in it are few and scanty; scarcely any of our travellers go to explore it; and in
many collections of maps it is almost ignored, being divided between Asia and the
Pacific Islands. It thus happens that few persons realize that, as a whole, it is comparable
with the primary divisions of the globe, and that some of its separate islands are larger
than France or the Austrian Empire. The traveller, however, soon acquires different
ideas. He sails for days or even weeks along the shores of one of these great islands,
often so great that its inhabitants believe it to be a vast continent. He finds that voyages
among these islands are commonly reckoned by weeks and months, and that their
several inhabitants are often as little known to each other as are the native races of the
northern to those of the southern continent of America. He soon comes to look upon this
region as one apart from the rest of the world, with its own races of men and its own
aspects of nature; with its own ideas, feelings, customs, and modes of speech, and with a
climate, vegetation, and animated life altogether peculiar to itself.
From many points of view these islands form one compact geographical whole, and as
such they have always been treated by travellers and men of science; but, a more careful
and detailed study of them under various aspects reveals the unexpected fact that they
are divisible into two portions nearly equal in extent which differ widely in their natural
products, and really form two parts of the primary divisions of the earth. I have been
able to prove this in considerable detail by my observations on the natural history of the
various parts of the Archipelago; and, as in the description of my travels and residence
in the several islands I shall have to refer continually to this view, and adduce facts in
support of it, I have thought it advisable to commence with a general sketch of the main
features of the Malayan region as will render the facts hereafter brought forward more
2
,interesting, and their bearing upon the general question more easily understood. I
proceed, therefore, to sketch the limits and extent of the Archipelago, and to point out
the more striking features of its geology, physical geography, vegetation, and animal life.
Definition and Boundaries. — For reasons which depend mainly on the distribution of
animal life, I consider the Malay Archipelago to include the Malay Peninsula as far as
Tenasserim and the Nicobar Islands on the west, the Philippines on the north, and the
Solomon Islands, beyond New Guinea, on the east. All the great islands included within
these limits are connected together by innumerable smaller ones, so that no one of them
seems to be distinctly separated from the rest. With but few exceptions all enjoy an
uniform and very similar climate, and are covered with a luxuriant forest vegetation.
Whether we study their form and distribution on maps, or actually travel from island to
island, our first impression will be that they form a connected whole, all the parts of
which are intimately related to each other.
Extent of the Archipelago and Islands. — The Malay Archipelago extends for more than
4,000 miles in length from east to west, and is about 1,300 in breadth from north to
south. It would stretch over an expanse equal to that of all Europe from the extreme
west far into Central Asia, or would cover the widest parts of South America, and extend
far beyond the land into the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. It includes three islands larger
than Great Britain; and in one of them, Borneo, the whole of the British Isles might be set
down, and would be surrounded by a sea of forests. New Guinea, though less compact in
shape, is probably larger than Borneo. Sumatra is about equal in extent to Great Britain;
Java, Luzon, and Celebes are each about the size of Ireland. Eighteen more islands are, on
the average, as large as Jamaica; more than a hundred are as large as the Isle of Wight;
while the isles and islets of smaller size are innumerable.
The absolute extent of land in the Archipelago is not greater than that contained by
Western Europe from Hungary to Spain; but, owing to the manner in which the land is
broken up and divided, the variety of its productions is rather in proportion to the
immense surface over which the islands are spread, than to the quantity of land which
they contain.
Geological Contrasts. — One of the chief volcanic belts upon the globe passes through
the Archipelago, and produces a striking contrast in the scenery of the volcanic and non-
volcanic islands. A curving line, marked out by scores of active, and hundreds of extinct,
volcanoes may be traced through the whole length of Sumatra and Java, and thence by
the islands of Bali, Lombock, Sumbawa, Flores, the Serwatty Islands, Banda, Amboyna,
Batchian, Makian, Tidore, Ternate, and Gilolo, to Morty Island. Here there is a slight but
well-marked break, or shift, of about 200 miles to the westward, where the volcanic belt
begins again in North Celebes, and passes by Sian and Sanguir to the Philippine Islands
along the eastern side of which it continues, in a curving line, to their northern
extremity. From the extreme eastern bend of this belt at Banda, we pass onwards for
1,000 miles over a non-volcanic district to the volcanoes observed by Dampier, in 1699,
3
, on the northeastern coast of New Guinea, and can there trace another volcanic belt
through New Britain, New Ireland, and the Solomon Islands, to the eastern limits of the
Archipelago.
In the whole region occupied by this vast line of volcanoes, and for a considerable
breadth on each side of it, earthquakes are of continual recurrence, slight shocks being
felt at intervals of every few weeks or months, while more severe ones, shaking down
whole villages, and doing more or less injury to life and property, are sure to happen, in
one part or another of this district, almost every year. On many of the islands the years
of the great earthquakes form the chronological epochs of the native inhabitants, by the
aid of which the ages of their children are remembered, and the dates of many
important events are determined.
I can only briefly allude to the many fearful eruptions that have taken place in this
region. In the amount of injury to life and property, and in the magnitude of their effects,
they have not been surpassed by any upon record. Forty villages were destroyed by the
eruption of Papandayang in Java, in 1772, when the whole mountain was blown up by
repeated explosions, and a large lake left in its place. By the great eruption of Tomboro
in Sumbawa, in 1815, 12,000 people were destroyed, and the ashes darkened the air and
fell thickly upon the earth and sea for 300 miles around. Even quite recently, since I left
the country, a mountain which had been quiescent for more than 200 years suddenly
burst into activity. The island of Makian, one of the Moluccas, was rent open in 1646 by a
violent eruption which left a huge chasm on one side, extending into the heart of the
mountain. It was, when I last visited it in 1860, clothed with vegetation to the summit,
and contained twelve populous Malay villages. On the 29th of December, 1862, after 215
years of perfect inaction, it again suddenly burst forth, blowing up and completely
altering the appearance of the mountain, destroying the greater part of the inhabitants,
and sending forth such volumes of ashes as to darken the air at Ternate, forty miles off,
and to almost entirely destroy the growing crops on that and the surrounding islands.
The island of Java contains more volcanoes, active and extinct, than any other known
district of equal extent. They are about forty-five in number, and many of them exhibit
most beautiful examples of the volcanic cone on a large scale, single or double, with
entire or truncated summits, and averaging 10,000 feet high.
It is now well ascertained that almost all volcanoes have been slowly built up by the
accumulation of matter — mud, ashes, and lava — ejected by themselves. The openings
or craters, however, frequently shift their position, so that a country may be covered
with a more or less irregular series of hills in chains and masses, only here and there
rising into lofty cones, and yet the whole may be produced by true volcanic action. In
this manner the greater part of Java has been formed. There has been some elevation,
especially on the south coast, where extensive cliffs of coral limestone are found; and
there may be a substratum 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
4
Corpus
1
,The Malay Archipelago
Alfred Russel Wallace
“Physical Geography.”
From a look at a globe or a map of the Eastern hemisphere, we shall perceive between
Asia and Australia a number of large and small islands forming a connected group
distinct from those great masses of land, and having little connection with either of
them. Situated upon the Equator, and bathed by the tepid water of the great tropical
oceans, this region enjoys a climate more uniformly hot and moist than almost any other
part of the globe, and teems with natural productions which are elsewhere unknown.
The richest of fruits and the most precious of spices are Indigenous here. It produces the
giant flowers of the Rafflesia, the great green-winged Ornithoptera (princes among the
butterfly tribes), the manlike Orangutan, and the gorgeous Birds of Paradise. It is
inhabited by a peculiar and interesting race of mankind — the Malay, found nowhere
beyond the limits of this insular tract, which has hence been named the Malay
Archipelago.
To the ordinary Englishman this is perhaps the least known part of the globe. Our
possessions in it are few and scanty; scarcely any of our travellers go to explore it; and in
many collections of maps it is almost ignored, being divided between Asia and the
Pacific Islands. It thus happens that few persons realize that, as a whole, it is comparable
with the primary divisions of the globe, and that some of its separate islands are larger
than France or the Austrian Empire. The traveller, however, soon acquires different
ideas. He sails for days or even weeks along the shores of one of these great islands,
often so great that its inhabitants believe it to be a vast continent. He finds that voyages
among these islands are commonly reckoned by weeks and months, and that their
several inhabitants are often as little known to each other as are the native races of the
northern to those of the southern continent of America. He soon comes to look upon this
region as one apart from the rest of the world, with its own races of men and its own
aspects of nature; with its own ideas, feelings, customs, and modes of speech, and with a
climate, vegetation, and animated life altogether peculiar to itself.
From many points of view these islands form one compact geographical whole, and as
such they have always been treated by travellers and men of science; but, a more careful
and detailed study of them under various aspects reveals the unexpected fact that they
are divisible into two portions nearly equal in extent which differ widely in their natural
products, and really form two parts of the primary divisions of the earth. I have been
able to prove this in considerable detail by my observations on the natural history of the
various parts of the Archipelago; and, as in the description of my travels and residence
in the several islands I shall have to refer continually to this view, and adduce facts in
support of it, I have thought it advisable to commence with a general sketch of the main
features of the Malayan region as will render the facts hereafter brought forward more
2
,interesting, and their bearing upon the general question more easily understood. I
proceed, therefore, to sketch the limits and extent of the Archipelago, and to point out
the more striking features of its geology, physical geography, vegetation, and animal life.
Definition and Boundaries. — For reasons which depend mainly on the distribution of
animal life, I consider the Malay Archipelago to include the Malay Peninsula as far as
Tenasserim and the Nicobar Islands on the west, the Philippines on the north, and the
Solomon Islands, beyond New Guinea, on the east. All the great islands included within
these limits are connected together by innumerable smaller ones, so that no one of them
seems to be distinctly separated from the rest. With but few exceptions all enjoy an
uniform and very similar climate, and are covered with a luxuriant forest vegetation.
Whether we study their form and distribution on maps, or actually travel from island to
island, our first impression will be that they form a connected whole, all the parts of
which are intimately related to each other.
Extent of the Archipelago and Islands. — The Malay Archipelago extends for more than
4,000 miles in length from east to west, and is about 1,300 in breadth from north to
south. It would stretch over an expanse equal to that of all Europe from the extreme
west far into Central Asia, or would cover the widest parts of South America, and extend
far beyond the land into the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. It includes three islands larger
than Great Britain; and in one of them, Borneo, the whole of the British Isles might be set
down, and would be surrounded by a sea of forests. New Guinea, though less compact in
shape, is probably larger than Borneo. Sumatra is about equal in extent to Great Britain;
Java, Luzon, and Celebes are each about the size of Ireland. Eighteen more islands are, on
the average, as large as Jamaica; more than a hundred are as large as the Isle of Wight;
while the isles and islets of smaller size are innumerable.
The absolute extent of land in the Archipelago is not greater than that contained by
Western Europe from Hungary to Spain; but, owing to the manner in which the land is
broken up and divided, the variety of its productions is rather in proportion to the
immense surface over which the islands are spread, than to the quantity of land which
they contain.
Geological Contrasts. — One of the chief volcanic belts upon the globe passes through
the Archipelago, and produces a striking contrast in the scenery of the volcanic and non-
volcanic islands. A curving line, marked out by scores of active, and hundreds of extinct,
volcanoes may be traced through the whole length of Sumatra and Java, and thence by
the islands of Bali, Lombock, Sumbawa, Flores, the Serwatty Islands, Banda, Amboyna,
Batchian, Makian, Tidore, Ternate, and Gilolo, to Morty Island. Here there is a slight but
well-marked break, or shift, of about 200 miles to the westward, where the volcanic belt
begins again in North Celebes, and passes by Sian and Sanguir to the Philippine Islands
along the eastern side of which it continues, in a curving line, to their northern
extremity. From the extreme eastern bend of this belt at Banda, we pass onwards for
1,000 miles over a non-volcanic district to the volcanoes observed by Dampier, in 1699,
3
, on the northeastern coast of New Guinea, and can there trace another volcanic belt
through New Britain, New Ireland, and the Solomon Islands, to the eastern limits of the
Archipelago.
In the whole region occupied by this vast line of volcanoes, and for a considerable
breadth on each side of it, earthquakes are of continual recurrence, slight shocks being
felt at intervals of every few weeks or months, while more severe ones, shaking down
whole villages, and doing more or less injury to life and property, are sure to happen, in
one part or another of this district, almost every year. On many of the islands the years
of the great earthquakes form the chronological epochs of the native inhabitants, by the
aid of which the ages of their children are remembered, and the dates of many
important events are determined.
I can only briefly allude to the many fearful eruptions that have taken place in this
region. In the amount of injury to life and property, and in the magnitude of their effects,
they have not been surpassed by any upon record. Forty villages were destroyed by the
eruption of Papandayang in Java, in 1772, when the whole mountain was blown up by
repeated explosions, and a large lake left in its place. By the great eruption of Tomboro
in Sumbawa, in 1815, 12,000 people were destroyed, and the ashes darkened the air and
fell thickly upon the earth and sea for 300 miles around. Even quite recently, since I left
the country, a mountain which had been quiescent for more than 200 years suddenly
burst into activity. The island of Makian, one of the Moluccas, was rent open in 1646 by a
violent eruption which left a huge chasm on one side, extending into the heart of the
mountain. It was, when I last visited it in 1860, clothed with vegetation to the summit,
and contained twelve populous Malay villages. On the 29th of December, 1862, after 215
years of perfect inaction, it again suddenly burst forth, blowing up and completely
altering the appearance of the mountain, destroying the greater part of the inhabitants,
and sending forth such volumes of ashes as to darken the air at Ternate, forty miles off,
and to almost entirely destroy the growing crops on that and the surrounding islands.
The island of Java contains more volcanoes, active and extinct, than any other known
district of equal extent. They are about forty-five in number, and many of them exhibit
most beautiful examples of the volcanic cone on a large scale, single or double, with
entire or truncated summits, and averaging 10,000 feet high.
It is now well ascertained that almost all volcanoes have been slowly built up by the
accumulation of matter — mud, ashes, and lava — ejected by themselves. The openings
or craters, however, frequently shift their position, so that a country may be covered
with a more or less irregular series of hills in chains and masses, only here and there
rising into lofty cones, and yet the whole may be produced by true volcanic action. In
this manner the greater part of Java has been formed. There has been some elevation,
especially on the south coast, where extensive cliffs of coral limestone are found; and
there may be a substratum 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
4
