The Malay Archipelago is one of the richest regions in
organic beings; yet if all the species were to be collected which have ever
lived there, how imperfectly would they represent the natural history of
the world!
But we have every reason to believe that the terrestrial productions of the
archipelago would be preserved in an extremely imperfect manner in the
formations which we suppose to be there accumulating. Not many of the
strictly littoral animals, or of those which lived on naked submarine
rocks, would be embedded; and those embedded in gravel or sand would not
endure to a distant epoch. Wherever sediment did not accumulate on the bed
of the sea, or where it did not accumulate at a sufficient rate to protect
organic bodies from decay, no remains could be preserved.
Formations rich in fossils of many kinds, and of thickness sufficient to
last to an age as distant in futurity as the secondary formations lie in
the past, would generally be formed in the archipelago only during periods
of subsidence. These periods of subsidence would be separated from each
other by immense intervals of time, during which the area would be either
stationary or rising; whilst rising, the fossiliferous formations on the
steeper shores would be destroyed, almost as soon as accumulated, by the
incessant coast-action, as we now see on the shores of South America. Even
throughout the extensive and shallow seas within the archipelago,
sedimentary beds could hardly be accumulated of great thickness during the
periods of elevation, or become capped and protected by subsequent
deposits, so as to have a good chance of enduring to a very distant future.
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