e 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, on the north-eastern 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 ea