SIR JOHN MURRAY. 857 



delayed its appearance for about two years. The Duke of Argyll, 

 learning of this fact, wrote accusing the scientific world of a deliberate 

 attempt to suppress the truth for fear of injuring the prestige of 

 Darwin. This called forth the indignant protest of Huxley. The 

 controversy, which created a considerable commotion among the 

 scientific men of that day, was known as the "Conspiracy of Silence." 



Murray maintained that the famous coral boring on the Atoll of 

 Funafuti in the Ellice Islands, made under the auspices of the Royal 

 Society of London, supported his views. In fact he predicted that 

 the diamond drill would penetrate into a talus. It might have been 

 inferred from this prophecy that the core taken from Funafuti would 

 lead to a discussion of what it actually revealed. A site for the hole 

 should have been selected where, if, as many believe, the theory of 

 subsidence is mistaken, the drill would have encountered only a com- 

 paratively thin stratum of coral rock. Such a site might be found at 

 some point a short distance from the centre of a lagoon, but even 

 there the evidence would not be conclusive if the atoll happened to 

 rest on a foundation of limestone. The situation chosen for the 

 Funafuti bore, on the rim of a large atoll, was unfortunate, and the 

 work instead of proving anything has complicated the subject; for 

 eminent men have drawn very different conclusions from the results 

 of the undertaking. Distinguished supporters of Darwin's theory of 

 subsidence have held that the drill pierced a continuous coral reef. 

 Murray believed it "passed through a portion of the talus produced by 

 the fragments torn from the growing face of the reef, and on which 

 it had proceeded seawards." While Alexander Agassiz was inclined 

 to think that the drill passed in part through Tertiary limestones, and 

 in part through a talus of modern material. 



The theories of Murray, Agassiz, and Gardiner differ in the amount 

 of work that thev attribute to modern corals, and the relative values 

 they assign to such agencies as organic deposits, erosion, solution, the 

 trade winds, and the scouring force of the ocean. But they all agree 

 in asserting that Darwin's theory of subsidence does not offer a satis- - 

 factory solution of the method of formation of atolls and barrier reefs. 



One episode in Murray's life furnishes a good example of the un- 

 expected practical benefits that may result from the pursuit of pure- 

 science. While crusing in the regions adjacent to the island of Java, 

 the nets of the Challenger collected some bits of phosphate. A care- 

 ful examination of these objects convinced Murray that they must 

 have been formed on land. Subsequent search for their origin, under 

 Murray's auspices, led to the discovery of the phosphate deposits of 



