Sunset over the Wallace Line. Lombok-Bali Strait, Indonesia
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), great British naturalist and explorer, friend of Charles Darwin, and author of amazing The Malay Archipelago (1869), visited Lombok. In 1859 he posited the famous Wallace Line in the strait between Bali and Lombok. It purported to divide Euro-Asian from Australian ecosystems. Wallace's idea was that the strait was extremely deep and thus a true divide between two islands quite close together. But soon others began to question his theory. One of these naturalists was Max Carl Wilhelm Weber (1852-1937).
The Dutch government fitted out a zoological and geographical scientific (deep-sea) expedition to this part of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), 1899-1900, and appointed Weber its leader (www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/16562413136/in/photoli...).
Their ship H.M. Siboga - named for the city of Sibolga/Siboga of western north Sumatra - moored at Labuan Tring in western Lombok, earlier visited by Wallace, in March 1899. Soon Weber demonstrated that the Lombok-Bali Strait was not nearly as deep as Wallace had estimated; only a mere 312 metres. He posited his own Line - between the Taminbar Islands and Timor - named after himself, which in turn had to make way for others.
Doubtless, however, the Sunsets before and after 1859 and 1899 remained much the same...
Sunset over the Wallace Line. Lombok-Bali Strait, Indonesia
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), great British naturalist and explorer, friend of Charles Darwin, and author of amazing The Malay Archipelago (1869), visited Lombok. In 1859 he posited the famous Wallace Line in the strait between Bali and Lombok. It purported to divide Euro-Asian from Australian ecosystems. Wallace's idea was that the strait was extremely deep and thus a true divide between two islands quite close together. But soon others began to question his theory. One of these naturalists was Max Carl Wilhelm Weber (1852-1937).
The Dutch government fitted out a zoological and geographical scientific (deep-sea) expedition to this part of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), 1899-1900, and appointed Weber its leader (www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/16562413136/in/photoli...).
Their ship H.M. Siboga - named for the city of Sibolga/Siboga of western north Sumatra - moored at Labuan Tring in western Lombok, earlier visited by Wallace, in March 1899. Soon Weber demonstrated that the Lombok-Bali Strait was not nearly as deep as Wallace had estimated; only a mere 312 metres. He posited his own Line - between the Taminbar Islands and Timor - named after himself, which in turn had to make way for others.
Doubtless, however, the Sunsets before and after 1859 and 1899 remained much the same...