The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

430 SOUTn AND EAST AFRICA.related by an English traveller that, in order to clear a passage for a large tombstone,as many as twenty-five thousand trees were felled in a forest in the Betsileoterritory.*F.\UNA.The Malagasy fauna, no less if not more original than the flora, excites thewonder of all naturali.sts, and causes them to indulge in all manner of speculationson the geological history of the island. The species peculiar to this insular rcgiuuhas given rise to the hj'pothesis, at first suggested by Geoffrey Saint-IIilaire, andafterwards more fully elaborated by the English naturalist Sclator, that Madagascarmust bo the remains of a continent which filled a part at least of the spacenow flooded by the waters of the Indian Ocean. This hypothetical continent evenreceived the name of Lemuria, from the characteristic members of the ape-likelemurian family, which is represented in Madagascar by a larger number ofdistinct species than in Africa or the Eastern Archipelago.Several men of science have accepted this suggestion in a more or less modifiedform, and HiBckel himself at one time went so far as to ask whether this Lemuria,which has long ceased to exist, should not be regarded as the cradle and centre ofdispersion of the various races of manldnd. But Alfred Russell Wallace, afterhaving for some time warmly upheld the theory that the Madagascar fauna atteststhe former existence of a vast Lemurian continent, now no longer believes in suchenormous changes in the distribution of land and water on the surface of the globe.Nevertheless this writer must still feel compelled to admit that very considei-ablemodifications have certainly taken place in the relative positions of the continentsand oceanic basins.In order to explain the presence of the African species which are also found inthe island of Madagascar, Wallace supposes that the two regions must formerlyhave been united, but that at that time Africa itself, still separated from theMediterranean lands by a broad marine inlet, possessed none of the animal speciessuch as the lion, rhinoceros, elephant, giraffe, and gazelle, which afterwards arrivedfrom the northern regions. In the same way he endeavours to explain, by temporaryisthmuses connecting continent with continent, or bj' seas separating them,the appearance in or the absence from Madagascar of diverse Asiatic, Malayan,Australian, or American animal tj-pes.t It is thus evident that even thosenaturalists who most strenuously maintain the long stability of the continentalmasses are themselves compelled to admit that the dry land has been profoimdlymodified during the course of ages.While the oceanic islands are in general extremely poor in manmialiaus,Madagascar on the contrary possesses as many as sixty-six sjjecies of this order, asufficient proof that this island must at one time have formed part of a much largerregion. These mammals, however, are grouped in such a manner as to constitute• Baron, Antananarivo Amiiinl, 1887."fComparative Antiquity of Contiiients ; Gcogiaphical Distrihutioii of Animals; Island Life.