Borneo And New Guinea, As Alike Physically As Two
Distinct Countries Can Be, Are Zoologically Wide As The Poles
Asunder;
While Australia, with its dry winds, its open plains,
its stony deserts, and its temperate climate, yet produces birds
and
Quadrupeds which are closely related to those inhabiting the
hot damp luxuriant forests, which everywhere clothe the plains
and mountains of New Guinea.
In order to illustrate more clearly the means by which I suppose
this great contrast has been brought about, let us consider what
would occur if two strongly contrasted divisions of the earth
were, by natural means, brought into proximity. No two parts of
the world differ so radically in their productions as Asia and
Australia, but the difference between Africa and South America is
also very great, and these two regions will well serve to
illustrate the question we are considering. On the one side we
have baboons, lions, elephants, buffaloes, and giraffes; on the
other spider-monkeys, pumas, tapirs, anteaters, and sloths; while
among birds, the hornbills, turacos, orioles, and honeysuckers of
Africa contrast strongly with the toucans, macaws, chatterers,
and hummingbirds of America.
Now let us endeavour to imagine (what it is very probable may
occur in future ages) that a slow upheaval of the bed of the
Atlantic should take place, while at the same time earthquake-
shocks and volcanic action on the land should cause increased
volumes of sediment to be poured down by the rivers, so that the
two continents should gradually spread out by the addition of
newly-formed lands, and thus reduce the Atlantic which now
separates them, to an arm of the sea a few hundred miles wide.
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