This
Is The Most Important Fact Which We Can Elicit From A Study Of The
Birds Of These Islands, Since It Gives Us A Very Complete Clue To Much
Of Their Past History.
Change of species is a slow process - on that we are all agreed, though
we may differ about how it has taken place.
The fact that the
Australian species in these islands have mostly changed, while the
Javan species have almost all remained unchanged, would therefore
indicate that the district was first peopled from Australia. But, for
this to have been the case, the physical conditions must have been
very different from what they are now. Nearly three hundred miles of
open sea now separate Australia from Timor, which island is connected
with Java by a chain of broken land divided by straits which are
nowhere more than about twenty miles wide. Evidently there are now
great facilities for the natural productions of Java to spread over
and occupy the whole of these islands, while those of Australia would
find very great difficulty in getting across. To account for the
present state of things, we should naturally suppose that Australia
was once much more closely connected with Timor than it is at present;
and that this was the case is rendered highly probable by the fact of
a submarine bank extending along all the north and west coast of
Australia, and at one place approaching within twenty miles of the
coast of Timor. This indicates a recent subsidence of North Australia,
which probably once extended as far as the edge of this bank, between
which and Timor there is an unfathomed depth of ocean.
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