Though political supremacy is possible even to an island of insignificant size, both the advantages arid the grave disadvantages of small area are constantly asserting themselves.  Some developments peculiar to large territory are here eliminated at the start.  For instance, robbery and brigandage, which were so long a scourge in peninsular Greece, were unheard of on the small Aegean islands.  Sheep-raising was at an early date safer in England than on the Continent, because wolves were earlier exterminated there.  Bio-geography shows an increasing impoverishment in the flora and fauna, of small islands with distance from the mainland.  In the Pacific Ocean, this progressive impoverishment from west to east has had great influence upon human life in the islands.  In Polynesia, therefore, all influences of the chase and of pastoral life are wanting, while in Melanesia, with its larger islands and larger number of land animals, hunting still plays an important part, and is the chief source of subsistence for many New Guinea villages.[929] Therefore a corresponding decay of projectile weapons is to be traced west to east, and is conspicuous in those crumbs of land constituting Polynesia and Micronesia.  The limit of the bow and arrow includes the northeastern portion of the Philippine group, cuts through the Malay Archipelago so as to include the Moluccas and Flores, includes Melanesia as far as Tonga or the Friendly Isles, but excludes Micronesia, Polynesia and Australia, Even in Melanesia, however, bows and arrows are not universal; they are lacking in peripheral islands like New Caledonia and New Ireland.[930]

The restriction of trees, also, with the exception of the coco-palm and pandanus, has had its effect upon boat making.  This general impoverishment is unmistakably reflected in the whole civilization of the smaller islands of Polynesia and Micronesia, especially in the Paumota and Pelew groups.  In the countless coralline islands which strew the Pacific, another restricting factor is found in their monotonous geological formation.  Owing to the lack of hard stone, especially of flint, native utensils and weapons have to be fashioned out of wood, bones, shells, and sharks’ teeth.[931]

[Sidenote:  Poverty of alluvial lowlands in islands.]

Nor does the geographical limitation end here.  Islands have proportionately a scanter allowance of fertile alluvial lowlands than have continents.  This follows from their geological history, except in the case of those low deposit islands built up from the waste of the land.  Most islands are summits of submerged mountain ranges, like Corsica and Sardinia, the Aegean archipelagoes, the Greater Antilles, Vancouver, and the countless fiord groups; or they are single or composite volcanic cones, like the Canaries, Azores, Lipari, Kurile, Fiji, Ascension, St. Helena and the Lesser Antilles; or they are a combination of highland subsidence and volcanic out-thrust, like Japan, the Philippines, the long Sunda chain