The Malay archipelago : the land of the orang-utan ... - Wallace Online

284 THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. [chap.the pebbles and stones of their beds, wliich exliibit a variety ofstratified crystalline rocks. About a hundred yards from thebeach rises a wall of coral rock, ten or twenty feet high, abovewhich is an undulating surface of rugged coral, which slopesdownward towards the interior, and then after a slight ascent isbounded by a second wall of coral. Similar walls occur higherup, and coral is found on the highest part of the island.This peculiar structure teaches us that before the coral wasformed land existed in this spot ; that this land sunk graduallybeneath the waters, but with intervals of rest, during whichencircling reefs were formed around it at different elevations ;that it then rose to above its present elevation, and is nowagain sinking. We infer this, because encircling reefs are aproof of subsidence ; and if the island were again elevatedabout a hundred feet, what is now the reef and the shallow seaAvithin it would form a wall of coral I'ock, and an undulatingcoralline plain, exactly similar to those that still exist at variousaltitudes up to the summit of the island. We learn also thatthese changes have taken place at a comparatively recent epoch,for the surface of the coral has scarcely suffered from the actionof the weather, and hundreds of sea-shells, exactly resemblingthose still found upon the beach, and many of them retainingtheir gloss and even their colour, are scattered over the surfaceof the island to near its summit.Whether the Goram group formed originally part of NewGuinea or of Ceram it is scarcely possible to determine, and itsproductions will throw little light upon the question, if, as Isuppose, the islands have been entirely submerged within theepoch of existing species of animals, as in that case it must oweits iDresent fauna and flora to recent immigration from surroundinglands ; and with this view its povei'ty in species very wellagi-ees. It possesses much in common with East Cei'am, but attlie same time has a good deal of resemblance to the K^ Islandsand Banda. The fine pigeon, Carpophaga concinna, inhabits Kd,Banda, Matabello, and Goram, and is replaced by a distinctspecies, C neglecta, in Ceram. The insects of these four islandshave also a common fades—facts which seem to indicate thatsome more extensive land has recently disappeared from thearea they now occupy, and has supplied them with a few of itspeculiar productions.Tlie Goram people (among whom I stayed a month) are a raceof traders. Every year they visit the Tenimbei-, Ke, and AruIslands, the whole north-west coast of New Guinea from Oetanatato Salwatty, and the islands of Waigiou and Mysol. They alsoextend their voyages to Tidore and Ternate, as well as to Bandaand Amboyna. Their praus are all made by tliat wonderful raceof boat-builders, the Ke islanders, who annually turn out somehundreds of boats, large and small, which can hardly be surpassedfor beauty of form and goodness of workmanship. Theytrade chiefly in tripang, the medicinal mussoi bark, wild nut-