Volume 14 Australasia - dana ward's homepage

CHAPTER XLEQUATORIAL POLYNESIA.'OLYNESIA. is one of those vague geographical terms which havebeen variously applied to more or less extensive aggregates ofoceanic islands. From the purely geographical standpoint theseare insular groups of small extent, scattered over the Pacific eastof the great archipelagoes and continental regions of the Philippines,New Guinea, and Australia. But ethnographically considered Polynesia,that is,the " Many Islands," consists of the east oceanic clusters inhabited by thelight brown race allied to the Malaj^s in speech, but differing greatly from them inphysical appearance, usages, and ti'aditions. Hence, from the ethnical pointof view, both New Zealand in the Antarctic hemisphere and Hawaii in thenorthern hemisphere would form part of Polynesia. But these outlying regions,so far removed from the equator, are so clearly distinguished hj their climate andgeographical constitution from the other Polynesian groups, that they have to bestudied apart.The Ellice Archipelago, also, whose inhabitants are likewise Polynesians,belong to the same insular chain as the Marshall and Gilbert Islands.Within its restricted limits Polynesia, properly so called, lies almost entirelybetween the equator and the tropic of Capricorn.But even within these limits itstill presents a-considerable extent of laud scattered over about 1,200,000 squaremiles of oceanic waters, and disposed in eleven chief groups, with here and therelittle clusters in twos and threes, or even solitary islands of every form, with acollective area estimated at nearly 4,000 square miles. Of the several islands,about two hundred and twenty have an area of at least half a mile and upwards ;but it would be impossible to number all the thousands of distinct islets and reefs,which form the rings of countless atolls, and which are awash with the surface,appearing and disappearing with the alternation of the tides.Like most other oceanic lands, the East Polynesian Islands are disposed incertain uniform directions. With the exception of Tonga, which belongs to tlieNew Zealand syst-em, and is connected with that archipelago through the Kermadecgroup, all the Polynesian islands are arranged in the direction from north-west tosouth-east in j^arallel chains, whose true form is shown more distinctly by that ofthe submerged banks revealed by the sounding-line. Excluding the less importantprominences, six main ridges follow with .'-triking regularity from the Niue