The north coasts are sometimes level, as at parts of Geelvink Bay and the extensive delta of the great Amberno river, at Walckenaar and Humboldt Bays, and farther east towards Cape della Torre, near which, and near Huon Gulf, there are large rivers; otherwise the shores are steep-to, and apparently rising, with promontories jutting 20 to 40 miles out, and some good harbours. There is no barrier reef off this coast. High distant mountains are observed at every opening, those towards the east rising in successive and highly fertile terraces to some 13,000 feet. No active volcanoes have as yet been observed on the mainland, but Mr W. Powell reports masses of pumice on the slopes of the Finisterre mountains. Severe earthquakes, too, occur on the north side, and there is a line of volcanic activity parallel to this coast some 20 to 50 miles distant. Near its east end are the D’Entrecasteaux Islands (7000 feet), richly wooded, with rocks of raised coral and boiling alkaline springs. Cape Bourou appears to be the extremity of the lofty Charles Louis range, over 16,000 feet, the tops of which seem from the distance to be snow-covered. East from Cape Bourou the mountains recede out of sight, the sea is shallow, and the flat mangrove-covered coast is intersected by creeks and rivers laden with mud, as far as the Gulf of Papua, where Signor D’Albertis reports that he steamed 500 miles up the Fly river, probably one of several channels draining a vast swamp country between the mountains and the sea. He found the tropical forest scenery varied by treeless plains, with isolated hills rising from them, like the islands in the neighbouring Torres Straits from the sea. These tracts are Australian in character. The hills probably escaped the submersion which, besides forming Torres Straits, covered the surrounding country, and thus remained as nuclei of an Australian flora,—the plains, on again emerging, being occupied, in great measure, by the tropical vegetation from the westward. Beyond Redscar Head in the Gulf of Papua the country again rises, having an Australian appearance,—open grassy hills with scattered timber sloping to the coast, which is here skirted by a barrier reef with occasional openings, affording good shelter to vessels. Inland, densely wooded hills and valleys with rivers and rich cultivable soil are backed by the great Owen Stanley range (13,000 feet), which terminates at the east forks in bluffs 2000 feet high.

Geology.— Of the geology of New Guinea little is known. In the north-west the Arfak mountains are mainly granite and gneiss. Near Geelvink Bay dark limestones occur, apparently ancient, and stratified clay slates. Bismuth is found here at Moom. Miosnom island, opposite, is volcanic. Raised coral is frequent on this (north) coast, and the streams bring down pebbles of plutonic rocks and sandstones. Clay ironstone is found at Humboldt Bay, on the river Jakata near M ’ Cluer Gulf, and at Lakahia Island, and a Tertiary coal (lignite) at Lakahia and in Galewo Strait. On the east side of the Gulf of Papua the coast range is of recent limestone. At Hall Sound calcareous clays from the Lower Miocene contain fossil shells identical with those found in Victoria and South Australia. Small fragments and pebbles, sent from Redscar and Astrolabe Bays (probably coming from the great central range), consisting of mica slate, quartz, sandstones, greenstones, and jasperoid rocks, are undistinguishable from those of the Devonian and Silurian series of the gold-fields of New South Wales. A black magnetic-iron sand (with traces of gold) and plumbago are reported from this (south-east) coast. Some of the Torres Straits islands are of raised coral, others of stratified sandstones with huge overlying blocks of the same and conglomerates, others volcanic.

Climate.— The climate of the coast is unhealthy, especially during the transition between the monsoons, which is long and irregular owing to the action of the high mountain ranges on these winds. The heat is tempered by the heavy rainfall, discharged by the north-west monsoon chiefly in the west and north; the south-east monsoon also is often wet, especially in the east and south districts. Torres Straits are healthier, though the heat is great and the amount of salt in the air is trying to many. From July to September the force of the south-east monsoon there is such that even steamers cannot always face it and the tide together.

Flora. — The flora is mainly that of the Indian Archipelago, which predominates even in the islands of Torres Straits; but on the shores of the Gulf of Papua, and inland, Australian vegetation is represented by Eucalyptus, acacias, and Pandanus ; and Australian types are found as far north as Humboldt Bay. Over great part of New Guinea dense forests prevail, clothing the mountains to a height of several thousand feet, the timber of enormous height, though the species are fewer than in the great islands of the archipelago. Among them various kinds of Ficus, Casuarina, Araucaria, Dammara, Podocarpus, Calophyllum, Aleurites, Ebenaceae, Canarium, Durio, Wormia, and many species of palms. The trees are matted with creepers {Bauhinia, Bignonia, Asclepias, &c.), with a dense undergrowth of brushwood, ferns, and lycopodiums, but their density often makes the herbaceous vegetation poor. Of the smaller growths are great reeds and grasses covering the swamps and open spaces; aloes, aroids, orchids, Sdtaminese (ginger, cardamum, &c.), Laurineae, Piperaceae (betel and others, wild and cultivated), Myrtaceae, Vinifer ae, pine-apple, nutmeg, cotton shrubs, Urticeae, Apocyneae, Malvaceae, Papilionaceae {Butea, Erythrina, Clitoria, Mimosa, &c.), Justices, and Begonias’, and in the mountains a sub-alpine flora, oaks, rhododendrons, vacciniums, epilobiums, Umbelliferae, &c. Among cultivated plants are the banana, papaya, orange, sugar cane, maize, millet, taro {Arum esculentum), Abelmoschus Manihot, Jambosa, yams, sweet potato, and pumpkins, and among the Amberbaki the dry rice. The cocoa-palm grows everywhere; the sago-palm grows wild in abundance in the swamps, and in the north-west each hill tribe, apparently to avoid collisions, draws its supplies from a different district of the coast. They have also in the hills a tree called “sali,” with top and pith resembling sago. Tobacco of good quality is brought down from the interior, and an illustrious antiquity is claimed for the plant by a tradition which describes it as the miraculous fruit of a woman named Heva. In some places the kava of the Pacific {Piper methysticum) is used. At Doreh a cotton plant {G. vitifolium) grows wild, and is also cultivated.

Fauna.— New Guinea is very poor in Mammalia. According to Mr Wallace {Geographical Distribution of Animals'), there are as yet known, besides a peculiar form of pig, some mice, and various Pteropidse, four families of marsupials, all Australian, viz., Dasyuridae, Peramélidae, Macropodidae, and Phalangistidas, with nine species Among them are a Dendrolagus or tree-kangaroo and several cuscus. There are also two echidnas. The large animals reported by travellers may possibly be gigantic marsupials akin to those found fossil in the Queensland Pleistocene. The wealth and beauty of the avifauna are great. Count Salvador! gives 1028 species, belonging to 321 genera, for the Papuan subregion {i.e., from the Solomon Islands westwards to, but excluding, Celebes). Of these about 470 are peculiar to New Guinea and the adjacent islands, including Aru. The more numerous and important genera are pre-eminently Australian in character, with many species peculiarly developed. There is also, as might be expected, a considerable number of Malayan forms, some common to the whole region, some only found here and at other far distant spots in it. The most remarkable orders, besides the birds of paradise, which are only found in New Guinea and the neighbouring islands, are the honeysuckers, flycatchers, parrots, kingfishers, and pigeons, all rich in special forms. Birds of prey are rare; vultures, pheasants, woodpeckers, and finches absent. Mr Wallace attributes the unusually large number of “beautiful” birds, 50 per cent, of the whole, to the numbers of parrots, lories, cockatoos, pigeons, and kingfishers, and to the absence of thrushes, shrikes, warblers, and other dull-coloured groups. Of snakes, which may migrate freely on floating timber, we find out of 24 genera (belonging to 11 families) 6 Oriental, 4 Australian, and only 4 specially Papuan; of lizards 3 families with 24 genera, of which only 3 are peculiarly Oriental, 3 Australian, 6 Papuan. The Amphibia (6 families with 8 genera), for which the salt water is a barrier, have no western affinities, and those not of wide distribution are almost exclusively Australian,—a fact of obvious geological significance. The Lepidoptera are numerous and singularly beautiful, as are the Coleoptera, which Mr Wallace says often display the metallic lustre characteristic of the plumage of the New Guinea birds.

Population.— The population consists of à great number of isolated tribes, differing much in appearance and language. The level of civilization varies, but seldom reaches even the average Pacific standard.

They have no single name for New Guinea, nor any idea of its extent, only using terms signifying “great land,” to distinguish it from the adjacent islands or from Australia.

The name Papùa is a Malayan term signifying frizzled, in reference to the hair; and, as distinguishing the peoples so characterized from the Australians, the term “Papuan” is by some writers thought more suitable than “Melanesian,” while equally distinguishing the race from the brown Polynesians. The type of man known as Papuan or Melanesian (see Melanesia) is found here in its greatest purity, and app⅛rs to occupy the whole island excepting its east extremity. But among tribes occupying so wide an area, having little intercommunication, and with other races at no great distance, many deviations from the normal type must be expected, and in fact it is not very easy to define this type. Its leading characteristics are— a medium height; fleshy rather than muscular frame; colour a sooty brown, varying, but decidedly darker than the Malay; high but narrow and rather retreating forehead, with thick brows; nose sometimes flat and wide at the nostrils, but offener hooked and “Jewish,” with depressed point, a feature represented in their karwars or ancestral images; prognathism general, but not universal; lips thick and projecting, so as to make the chin seem retreating; high cheek bones; hair black, frizzly, trained into a mop. The appearance ⅛ thus negroid, and is said to resemble the population of the African coast opposite Aden. But in the Arfak mountains in the north-west, and at points on the west and north coasts and adjacent islands, very degraded and stunted tribes are found, with hardly the elements of social organization (possibly the aboriginal race unmixed with foreign elements), and resembling the Aetas or Negritos of the Philippines, and other kindred tribes in the Malay Archipelago. On the banks of the Fly river D’Albertis observed at least two widely differing types, those on its upper course bearing some resemblance to the tribes of the eastern coast. Here, wedged in among the ruder Papuans, who reappear at. the extremity of the peninsula, we find a very different-looking people, whom competent observers, arguing from appearance, language, and customs, assert to be a branch of the fair Polynesian race. But there are obvious signs among them of much admixture of blood; and they or their congeners again may easily have modified their neighbours immediately west of them, just as Malay and other influences have done on the other end of the island. Indeed the greater degree of intelligence and good looks observed at points along the north coast may be due simply to this cause. On the west coasts there is a semi-civilization, due to intercourse with Malays and Bughis, who have settled at various points, and carry on the trade with the neighbouring islands, in some of which, while the coast population is Malay or mixed, that of the interior is identical with the people of the mainland. On the west coasts Mohammedan teaching has also some civilizing effect. Many of the tribes at this west end of New Guinea are, at all events in war time, head-hunters, and in the mountains cannibals. Cannibalism in fact is practised here and there throughout New Guinea. Tho frequent hostility and mistrust of strangers arc partly due to slave-hunting raids and ill-treatment by traders, but the different tribes vary much in character. Thus in the mountains of the north-west the Karons, a short, hardy, well-built people, cultivate very little, living chiefly on wild plants which their women cook in hollow bamboos, and obtaining what they require from without, as knives, ornaments, &c., either by plunder, or by disposal of slaves or bird skins; while their neighbours the Kebars grow vegetables and very fine tobacco, which they sell to the Amberbaki, a peaceful industrious coast tribe. The mountain tribes are usually despised by their coast neighbours as ruder and more destitute of resources, but when more numerous and fiercer, as in the south of west New Guinea, the tables are turned, and the coast people live in perpetual terror of their neighbours, who plunder and enslave them.

At Humboldt Bay the people, though uncertain, rude, and warlike, are ready to trade, and tribes of a kindred race are found farther east, at Astrolabe Bay; here the Russian Miklucho Maclay lived among them for some time, and was favourably impressed by them. Still farther east, the plateaus of the Finisterre ranges are highly cultivated and artificially irrigated by a comparatively fair people. Many tribes in the south-west seem to be migratory. At Princess Marianne Straits tribes much wilder than those farther west, naked and painted, swarm like monkeys in their trees, the stems of which are submerged at high tide. But the Torres Straits islanders are employed by Europeans in the pearl shell fishery, and are liked as labourers; andin some of the Ké and Aru Islands the Papuan inhabitants form orderly Christian communities. The people of the south-east peninsula seem generally, like the typical Polynesian, of a mild, accessible type. Englishmen, wandering inland and losing their way, have been found and brought back by them. Their manners are more courteous, their women better treated, than is usual with Papuans, but they show perhaps less ingenuity and artistic taste. Their children, in the mission schools, show much intelligence.

While tribes allied to the Papuan have been traced through Timor, Flores, and the highlands of the Malay Peninsula to the Deccan of India, these “Oriental negroes” have many curious resemblances with some East-African tribes. Besides the appearance of the hair, the raised cicatrices, the belief in omens and sorcery, the extraction of diseases in the form of bits of wood or stone, and the practices for testing the courage of youths, they are equally devoid of forethought or ambition, rude, merry, and boisterous, but amenable to discipline, and with decided artistic tastes and faculty.

Several of the above practices are also common to tho Australians, who, though generally inferior, have many points of resemblance (osteological and other) with the Papuans. The extinct Tasmanians were more closely allied to the Papuans.

The constitution of society is everywhere simple. Among the more advanced tribes rank is hereditary, otherwise the chiefs generally have but little power, most matters being settled by the assembly, a contrast to the Polynesian respect for birth and hereditary rank. The Papuan’s religious institutions are likewise simpler; there is no general object of worship, consequently no regular priesthood; the institution of tabu is less oppressive, and its sanction less awful, but the transgressor may still have to reckon, not only with the society or individual who imposed it, but also with offended spirits. Almost every crime is condoned by payment. A characteristic example of the feeling of the fair race towards the dark was seen in the contempt shown by the tribes of the south-east towards certain Melanesian teachers introduced by the English missionaries, while others brought from the Polynesian islands were treated with respect.

The Papuan women are, as a rule, more modest than the Polynesian.

In western New Guinea, according to the Dutch missionaries, there is a vague notion of a universal spirit, practically represented by several malevolent powers, as Manoin, the most powerful, who resides in the woods; Narwoje in the clouds, above the trees, a sort of Erl-König who carries off children; Faknik in the rocks by the sea, who raises storms. As a protection against these the people construct —having first with much ceremony chosen a tree for the purpose— certain rude images called karwars, each representing a recently dead progenitor, whose spirit is then invoked to occupy the image and protect them against their enemies and give success to their undertakings. The karwar is about a foot high, with head disproportionately large; the male figures are sometimes represented with a spear and shield, the female holding a snake. Omens are observed before starting on any expedition; if they are unfavourable the person threatened retires, and another day is chosen and the process repeated. They have magicians and rain-makers, and sometimes resort to ordeal to discover a crime. Temples (so-called) are found in the north and west, built like the houses, but larger, the piles being carved into figures, and the roof-beams and other prominent points decorated with representations of crocodiles or lizards, coarse human figures, and other grotesque ornamentation; but their use is not clear. Neither temples nor images (except small figures worn as amulets) occur among the people of the south-east, whose religious ideas seem vague and rudimentary; but they have a great dread of departed spirits, especially those of the hostile inland tribes, and of a being called Vata, who causes disease and death.

The dead are disposed of in various ways. The spirit is supposed not to leave the body immediately, which is either buried for a time and.then taken up and the bones cleaned and deposited in or near the dwelling, or it is exposed with the same object on a platform of -branches,'or dried over a fire, and the mummy kept for a few years. Sometimes the head, oftener the jaw bone, is kept as a relic. Food is placed on a grave,—with an infant a calabash of its mother’s inilk,-and a path is made to the sea that the spirit may bathe; but the spirits are everywhere dreaded as likely to injure the living. No one likes to go about, or into the water, after dark. Little imitation houses are placed in the woods to allure the spirits away. These dwell chiefly in the moon, and are particularly active at full moon. ’ The houses which they haunt, and beneath or near which their bodies lie buried, are deserted from time to time, especially by a newly-married couple, or by women before childbirth. Probably the effluvium from the buried corpse produces the feelings of sickness which are supposed to be caused by the spirit’s presence, and which subside when they leave the spot.

i Feasting and dances take place on the setting up of a karwar, on the return of warlike and other expeditions, at a marriage, birth, change of name, child’s first hair-cutting, and also some time after a death.

The chief diseases are skin diseases, with which in some places one-third of the population is affected,—among these a sort of leprosy to which, as well as to a dropsy (beri-bcrι), Europeans are subject,—catarrhs, boils, syphilis, and intermittent fevers, especially where there is much coral on the coast.

"The Papuan varies his vegetable diet with the flesh of the wild pig, wallabi,...