Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstrait121878roya).pdf/34

 little more than a skeleton map at present, drawn to a large scale, but it is getting gradually filled up as information comes in.

And information does come from many sources. The other day I saw a map which had been sent in by the Siamese Government, which I considered a great curiosity, so much so that I hope it may be exhibited in the Raffles Muscum. This was to show an important piece of boundary line far up in the north, Then there is another map being made by the Maharaja of Johor in the south. Trained surveyors are clearing up old puzzles in various parts between these extremes. And every officer in the English Colonies, or in the Native States, who is called by duty or curiosity to travel beyond the limits of the well known and well surveyed districts, has an opportunity of adding something to the knowledge of the country which is already possessed. All new facts, thus acquired by officials or private individuals, are made known to the Government here, and, after being verified as far as possible by comparison with existing data, are recorded on the map. So that there is reason to expect that those great blank spaces will be filled up in time.

And think of what we know those great blanks must mean. We know there are great mountain ranges, the back-bone of the Peninsula, clothed with all the diversities of vegetable life, which the lowered temperature of elevated lands in the tropics makes possible. Then there must be a great water system, carrying off the moisture deposited on the high lands through the plains below. One of the latest discoveries is, that the great river Pahang, running up from the south, is but a branch of a much larger stream running from the north, and uniting itself with the Pahang at upwards of one hundred miles from its mouth.

In the dense Equatorial forests, which cover the greater part of these hill-sides and plains, forests, which are now only entered here and there by a few individual natives, to cut down the gutta producing trees, or to collect the few other natural products, of which the commercial value is known to them, and perhaps by charcoal burners for the purpose of turning some small portion of those glorious forests into portable fuel, what a hoard of wealth there is for the Botanist and the Naturalist; and what splendid possibilities for the Planter and the Merchant. Mr. Wallace tells us that, during the six years he was collecting in these latitudes, his Natural History specimens reached the enormous number of 125,660, of which a very large proportion were entirely new to Science. With such an example as that in view, it is not easy to over-estimate the gains to every branclı of natural science, that might be expected from a thorough