The Rock Which Everywhere Appears In The Ravines
And Brooks Is A Coralline Limestone, In Some Places Soft And
Pliable, In Others So Hard And Crystalline As To Resemble Our
Mountain Limestone.
The small islands which surround the central mass are very
numerous; but most of them are on the east side, where they form
a fringe, often extending ten or fifteen miles from the main
islands.
On the west there are very few, Wamma and Palo Pabi
being the chief, with Ougia, and Wassia at the north-west
extremity. On the east side the sea is everywhere shallow, and
full of coral; and it is here that the pearl-shells are found
which form one of the chief staples of Aru trade. All the islands
are covered with a dense and very lofty forest.
The physical features here described are of peculiar interest,
and, as far as I am aware, are to some extent unique; for I have
been unable to find any other record of an island of the size of
Aru crossed by channels which exactly resemble true rivers. How
these channels originated were a complete puzzle to me, till,
after a long consideration of the whole of the natural phenomena
presented by these islands, I arrived at a conclusion which I
will now endeavour to explain. There are three ways in which we
may conceive islands which are not volcanic to have been formed,
or to have been reduced to their present condition, by elevation,
by subsidence, or by separation from a continent or larger
island.
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