CHAPTER II
NEW GUINEA GEOGRAPHY
Live volcanic islands and atolls are things of to-day, made New and unmade before our eyes ; Polynesian ex-volcanoes and aTo'ut ** raised coral rocks are things of yesterday ; Fiji, the Solomons, nental and New Hebrides take us back to earlier times, which are lsland - probably later than those of Surrey chalk ; but the principal mountains of New Guinea, composed as they are of quartz- veined schist and slate, are as old as Wales. Again, the three largest groups hitherto discussed are, if added together, less than Ireland ; but British New Guinea, which is not one third of New Guinea, just exceeds Great Britain in area. 1 For these reasons New Guinea is classed with continental islands in spite of its meagre list of mammals, which includes two monotremes (Echidna and Proechidna), and forty-four minute marsupials (cuscus, tree-kangaroos, &c), besides the usual dog, pig, rat and bat. Other reasons for classing New Guinea with the continents are furnished by its shape and substance.
If lands might be likened to animals, Funafuti would ami //.«• rank as a protozöon, Viti Levu as a bossy echinoderm, ^j^an- Kandavu as an insect, but New Guinea as a verbetrate, with üs con- head, spine, and tail complete. The head is hidden in Dutch '» ww ^'*- New Guinea; the spine consists of ridges (not peaks), or successions of ridges, of which Mounts Scratchier and Victoria (13,121 ft.) constitute the best-known British representatives, and from this spine ribs break off north and south and create bilateral symmetry. The tail is fourfold. In the far east two flat coral patches, the Laughlans 9 , and
1 circa 90,540 sq. m.
- alias Nada, includes 7 islands less than 9 ft. or, M. VOL. VI (2) c