Note 2 — Chapter I
Reading edition
At this stage it may assist the reader if I give in a footnote the principal geographic divisions of Australasia.
Beginning on the west there is Malaysia, a term which comprises all the islands of the Malay Archipelago up to the vicinity of New Guinea. New Guinea and the islands and archipelagoes near it constitute the region of Papuasia; south of Papuasia is Australia (including Tasmania, Lord Howe, and Norfolk Islands, and perhaps New Caledonia); to the south-east of Australia lies New Zealand, which dominion comprises naturally and politically the Kermadec islets, the Chatham Islands and Macquarie Island; Melanesia is the domain of the dark-skinned people who are half-Papuan and half-Polynesian, and is generally held to include the Solomon Islands, the Santa Cruz, and New Hebrides archipelagoes, and the Fiji group. All the foregoing (together with the Samoa and Tonga Islands) were once connected by land with each other and with the continent of Asia.
North of Papuasia is the division of small islands known as Micronesia; it includes the Gilbert, Marshall, Caroline, and Ladrone archipelagoes. Almost in the middle of the northern half of the Pacific is the isolated ridge or shelf from which rises the Hawaii or Sandwich Islands, two of which are rather large (for Pacific islands). The Hawaii group is quite distinct from any other, and has never been joined to a continent. Finally, there remains the division of Polynesia, which likewise, in all probability, has never been continental, and which includes the separate archipelagoes of Marquezas, Tuamotu, Tubuai, Tahiti (the Society Islands), the Palmyra, Phœnix, and Malden groups, and the remote Easter Island, only 2374 miles from South America. The term "Polynesia" often covers the Samoa and the Tonga Islands, because they are peopled by the Polynesian race; but these groups are in other respects part of Melanesia. Finally, Oceania is a convenient term for all the islands, including New Guinea and New Zealand, which lie to the east of Malaysia, to the north and east of Australia.