One Of The Chief Objects Of My Travels Was To Obtain Evidence Of
This Nature; And My Search After Such
Evidence has been rewarded
by great success, so that I have been able to trace out with some
probability the
Past changes which one of the most interesting
parts of the earth has undergone. It may be thought that the
facts and generalizations here given would have been more
appropriately placed at the end rather than at the beginning of a
narrative of the travels which supplied the facts. In some cases
this might be so, but I have found it impossible to give such an
account as I desire of the natural history of the numerous
islands and groups of islands in the Archipelago, without
constant reference to these generalizations which add so much to
their interest. Having given this general sketch of the subject,
I shall be able to show how the same principles can be applied to
the individual islands of a group, as to the whole Archipelago;
and thereby make my account of the many new and curious animals
which inhabit them both, more interesting and more instructive
than if treated as mere isolated facts.
Contrasts of Races. - Before I had arrived at the conviction that
the eastern and western halves of the Archipelago belonged to
distinct primary regions of the earth, I had been led to group
the natives of the Archipelago under two radically distinct
races. In this I differed from most ethnologists who had before
written on the subject; for it had been the almost universal
custom to follow William von Humboldt and Pritchard, in classing
all the Oceanic races as modifications of one type.
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