1836.] SUBSIDENCE OF COEAL-tfEEFS. 475 



therefore, to affirm, that on the theory of the upward growth of 

 the corals during the sinking of the land,* all the leading fea- 

 tures in those wonderful structures, the lagoon-islands or atolls, 

 which have so long excited the attention of voyagers, as well as 

 in the no less wonderful barrier-reefs, whether encircling small 

 islands or stretching for hundreds of miles along the shores of a 

 continent, are simply explained. 



It may be asked, whether 1 can offer any direct evidence of 

 the subsidence of barrier-reefs or atolls ; but it must be borne in 

 mind how difficult it must ever be to detect a movement, the 

 tendency of which is to hide under water the part affected. Ne- 

 vertheless, at Keeling atoll I observed on all sides of the lagoon 

 old cocoa-nut trees undermined and falling ; and in one place 

 the foundation-posts of a shed, which the inhabitants asserted 

 had stood seven years before just above high-water mark, but 

 now was daily washed by every tide : on inquiry I found that 

 three earthquakes, one of them severe, had been felt here during 

 the last ten years. At Vanikoro, the lagoon-channel is remark- 

 ably deep, scarcely any alluvial soil has accumulated at the foot 

 of the lofty included mountains, and remarkably few islets have 

 been formed by the heaping of fragments and sand on the wall- 

 like barrier-reef; these facts, and some analogous ones, led me 

 to believe that this island must lately have subsided and the 

 reef grown upwards : here again earthquakes are frequent and 

 very severe. In the Society archipelago, on the other hand, 

 where the lagoon-channels are almost choked up, where much 

 low alluvial land has accumulated, and where in some cases long 

 islets have been formed on the barrier- reefs facts all showing 

 that the islands have not very lately subsided only feeble shocks 

 are most rarely felt. In these coral formations, where the land 

 and water seem struggling for mastery, it must be ever difficult 

 to decide between the effects of a change in the set of the tides 

 and of a slight subsidence : that many of these reefs and atolls 



* It has been highly satisfactory to me to find the following passage in a 

 pamphlet by Mr. Couthouy, one of the naturalists in the great Antarctic Ex- 

 pedition of the United States : " Having personally examined a large 

 number of coral-islands, and resided eight months among the volcanic 

 class having shore and partially encircling reefs, I may be permitted 

 to state that my own observations have impressed a conviction of the cor- 

 rectness of the theory of Mr. Darwin." The naturalists, however, of this 

 expedition differ with me on some points respecting coral formations. 



