Geographical, zoological, and ethnological considerations render it almost certain, that if these two races ever had a common origin, it could only have been at a period far more remote than any which has yet been assigned to the antiquity of the human race.
And even if their lenity could be proved, it would in no way affect my argument for the close affinity of the Papuan and Polynesian races, and the radical distinctness of both from the Malay.
Polynesia is pre-eminently an area of subsidence, and its great widespread groups of coral-reefs mark out the position of former continents and islands.

The rich and varied, yet strangely isolated productions of Australia and New Guinea, also indicate an extensive continent where such specialized forms were developed.

The races of men now inhabiting these countries are, therefore, most probably the descendants of the races which inhabited these continents and islands.
This is the most simple and natural supposition to make.

And if we find any signs of direct affinity between the inhabitants of any other part of the world and those of Polynesia, it by no means follows that the latter were derived from the former.

For as, when a Pacific continent existed, the whole geography of the earth's surface would probably be very different from what it now is, the present continents may not then have risen above the ocean, and, when they were formed at a subsequent epoch, may have derived some of their inhabitants from the Polynesian area itself.