TOPOGRAPHY. The waters on the south of the island are so shallow that if the sea floor were elevated 300 feet New Guinea would form a p:u•t of .Australia and the Louisiade Archipelago in the southeast would be a part of the main land. Oceanic depths encircle the island on the other sides. Around it are scattered a consid erable number of islands, sonic of which were tin• doubtedly torn away from the greater land Mass. In many places the coast is fringed with coral reefs and islands, most of them covered with vegetation. The vastness of the island, together with the marshy coastlands and dense forests and jungle, hindered exploration and white enter prises till the last decades of the nineteenth century. The interior has not been adequately explored, and most of the western half of the island, under the Dutch flag, is still unknown except along the coasts. There are a sufficient number of indentations on the coasts to provide excellent harbors as the country develops. Port 3Ioresby, with a population of 1000 natives and 50 Europeans, has wharves for shipping. and is the seat of government and the chief port of Southeastern New Guinea ( British New Guinea); Samarai and Darn. islands near the mainland, provide the other ports for this colony. Friedrich Wilhelmshafen is the most important port of the northeast of the island, or Kaiser Wilhelmsland (German New Guinea), and vessels trade at a few points in Western New Guinea, the half of the island which is possessed by the Nether lands.
A large part of the coasts are fronted by low and marshy plains suitable for riee-growing; but the interior is very rugged and so densely covered with tropical vegetation that progress is extremely difficult, excepting along a few rivers. Nearly everywhere paths have to be cleared with hatchets. and a mile of advance is often a hard day's work; under such circumstances explora tion has been very slow; but the stun total of the work of many explorers has given a fair idea of the interior, excepting in Dutch New Guinea.
Through the eastern half of the island stretches range after range of mountains extending from northwest to southeast, the eastern ranges cul minating in the Owen Stanley Mountains, whose peaks, Mount Victoria (13.200 feet) and
Mount Albert Edward (13,0001, are supposed to be the loftiest elevations of British New Guinea. The eastern mountains are of igneous origin, the central masses schistose, and the western ranges chiefly sandstone. The parallel chains of the Kaiser Wilhelmsland ranges are also stupendous and may he seen far out at sea long before the coast lands come into view. The two lofty peaks of the Bismarck range are supposed to be from 15,000 to 20.000 feet high. probably the highest summits in New Guinea. It is thought that the German mountains may be the eastern prolonga tion of great ranges in Dutch New Guinea still unexplored. The geological structure of the German mountains has not yet been studied. I.ofty mountains. some of them 10.000 feet high, fringe long stretches of the north coast of Dutch New Guinea ; and farther south the long range of the Charles Louis Mountains extends far cast with elevations of 12,000 to 16,000 feet, some of them said to be covered with snow, though this statement is not authoritatively reported. The Dutch coast mountains appear to be of ter tiary limestone excepting the Cyclops. which are of volcanic origin; the great mountains of the interior are chiefly composed of slates and sand stones. Everywhere between the mountains cx• tend wide or narrow plains tilled with high grass or dense jungle and scrub.
lIvintotat.ten v. The central mountain ranges form the water parting between rivers flowing to the south and the north. Navigation may he developed more extensively than on most of the great islands of the world. The largest river is ' the Hy, which, rising on the British-German border, has a course of 620 miles to the Papua Gulf and may be ascended by steam launches for 500 miles. 'The Purari, farther east, is navigable by steamboats for 120 miles. The Kaise•in Augusta River in Kaiser Wilhelmsland has been ascended by a sea-going steamer for ISO miles. The Ottilia is navigable, and it is believed the Marga will be useful as a means of transporta tion. Little but the mouths of the Dutch rivers can yet be laid down on the maps, but the depth and breadth of some of the outlets indicate im portant streams.