Identifier: islandlifeorphen001wall (find matches)
Title: Island life : or, the phenomena and causes of insular faunas and floras, including a revision and attempted solution of the problem of geological climates
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: Wallace, Alfred Russel, 1823-1913
Subjects: Biogeography Islands Glacial epoch
Publisher: London : Macmillan
Contributing Library: California Academy of Sciences
Digitizing Sponsor: California Academy of Sciences Library

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ast Geographical Changes of Java and Borneo—ThePhilippine Islands—Concluding Remarks on the Malay Islands. As a representative of recent continental islands situatedin the tropics, we will take Borneo, since, althoughperhaps not much more ancient than Great Britain, itpresents a considerable amount of speciality; and, in itsrelations to the surrounding islands and the Asiaticcontinent, offers us some problems of great interest andconsiderable difficulty. The accompanying map shows that Borneo is situatedon the eastern side of a submarine bank of enormousextent, being about 1,200 miles from north to south, and1,500 from east to west, and embracing Java, Sumatra,and the Malay Peninsula. This vast area is all includedwithin the 100 fathom line, but by far the larger part ofit—from the Gulf of Siam to the Java Sea—is underfifty fathoms, or about the same depth as the sea thatseparates our own island from the continent. The distancefrom Borneo to the southern extremity of the Malay
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ll^alker (r Boutall sc.MAP OF BORNEO AND JAVA, SHOWING THE GREAT SUBMARINE BANK OF SOUTH-EASTERN ASIA. The light tint shows a less depth than 100 fathoms.The figures show the depth of the sea in fathoms. CHAP. xvTT BORNEO, JAVA, AND THE PHILIPPINES 375 Peninsula is about 350 miles, and it is nearly as far fromSumatra and Java, while it is more than 600 miles fromthe Siamese Peninsula, opposite to which its long northerncoast extends. There is, I believe, nowhere else uponthe globe, an island so far from a continent, yet separatedfrom it by so shallow a sea. Eecent changes of sea andland must have occurred here on a grand scale, and thisadds to the interest attaching to the study of this largeisland. The internal geography of Borneo is somewhat peculiar.A large portion of its surface is lowland, consisting of greatalluvial valleys which penetrate far into the interior ; whilethe mountains except in the north, are of no greatelevation, and there are no extensive plateaux. Asubsidence of

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