MALAY ARCHIPELAGO' (variously called Malaysia, the Indian Archipelago, the East Indies, Indonesia, Insulinde), the largest group of islands in the world, lying south-east of Asia and north and north-west of Australia. It includes the Sunda Islands, the Moluccas, New Guinea, and the Philippine Islands, but excludes the Andaman-Nicobar group. The equator passes through the middle of the archipelago; it successively cuts Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes and Halmahera, four of the most important islands. A. R. Wallace (who includes the Solomon Islands as well as New Guinea in the group) points out that the archipelago "includes two islands larger than Great Britain; and in one of them, Borneo, the whole of the British Isles might be set down, and would be surrounded by a sea of forests. Sumatra is about equal in extent to Great Britain; Java, Luzon, and Celebes are each about the size of Ireland. Eighteen more islands are on the average as large as Jamaica; and more than a hundred are as large as the Isle of Wight." The islands of the archipelago nearly all present bold and picturesque profiles against the horizon, and at the same time the character of the scenery varies from island to island and even from district to district. The mountains are arranged for the most part in lines running either from north-west to south-east or from west to east. In Sumatra and in the islands between Sumatra and Borneo the former direction is distinctly marked, and the latter is equally noticeable in Java and the other southern islands. The mountains of Borneo, however, rise rather in short ridges and clusters. Nothing in the general physiognomy of the islands is more remarkable than the number and distribution of the volcanoes, active or extinct. Running south-east through Sumatra, east through Java and the southern islands to Timor, curving north through the Moluccas, and again north, from the end of Celebes through the whole line of the Philippines, they follow a line roughly resembling a horseshoe narrowed towards the point. The loftiest mountain in the archipelago would appear to be Kinabalu in Borneo (13,698 ft.). An important fact in the physical geography of the archipelago is that Java, Bali, Sumatra and Borneo, and the lesser islands between them 1 For more detailed information respecting the several islands and groups of the archipelago, see the separate articles Borneo; Java; Philippine Islands; Sumatra, &C.
The most notable fact in the geological history of the archipelago is the discovery in Java of the fossil remains of Pithecanthropus erectus, a form intermediate between the higher apes and man. In its structure and cranial capacity it is entitled to a higher place in the zoological scale than any anthropoid, for it almost certainly walked erect; and, on the other hand, in its intellectual powers it must have been much below the lowest of the human race at present known. The strata in which it was found belong to the Miocene or Upper Pliocene. Among the rocks of economic importance may be mentioned granite of numerous kinds, syenite, serpentine, porphyry, marble, sandstones and marls. Coal is worked in Sumatra, Borneo and Labuan. Diamonds are obtained in Borneo, garnets in Sumatra, Bachian and Timor, and topazes in Bachian, antimony in Borneo and the Philippines; lead in Sumatra, Borneo and the Philippines; copper and malachite in the Philippines, Timor, Borneo and Sumatra; and, most important of all, tin in Banka, Billiton and Singkep. Iron is pretty frequent in various forms. Gold is not uncommon in the older ranges of Sumatra, Banka, Celebes, Bachian, Timor and Borneo. Manganese could be readily worked in Timor, where it lies in the Carboniferous Limestone. Platinum is found in Landak and other parts of Borneo. Petroleum is a valuable product of Sumatra and Java, and is also found in Borneo.
