Phillips. — On the Volcanoes of the Pacific. 195 



subsidence which accompauied and succeeded the upheavals 

 the coral-polyp started its labours on the top of an extinct 

 volcano or from a rugged ridge or peak. The evidences are 

 common in the Pacific for a volcanic hill to subside, the crater 

 to become a lake or a lagoon, the island to sink still further, 

 and end in being an atoll or a crescent- or low-shaped reef, or 

 finally a sunken coral-patch. At the same time, with these 

 evidences of subsidence, there is this third area of upheaval. 

 Nor can there be subsidence in the earth's crust without up- 

 heaval somewhere. But my task is only to record the facts 

 I have seen or collected regarding these islands. 



We must ask residents in the islands to keep a careful 

 record of observation in land- and sea-levels. At present it 

 may only be that the Pacific Ocean is deepening slightly in 

 consequence of a slight sliallowing of the Atlantic or Indian 

 Oceans, which would account for the marvellous energy of the 

 coral-polyp — an animal that must go on building as the waters 

 deepen. Neither in the Atlantic nor Indian Oceans is there 

 anything approaching the coral-growth we find in the Pacific. 

 At Easter Island the carved tulf images are slowly descending 

 into the sea. In the physical geography of the earth I am in- 

 clined to the belief that all change is slow and gradual, and 

 not violent, ki times, here and there, we experience a great 

 volcanic eruption, but it is confined strictly to a very circum- 

 scribed locality. 



Soundings amongst the islands are very steep — 200 to 600 

 fathoms (1,200 ft. to 3,600ft.), and this sometimes close up to 

 the reefs. One can easily understand this, however, looking 

 at the rugged volcanic shape of the islands of Fiji, Samoa, 

 or Tahiti. x\nd the deepest soundings on earth, as already 

 pointed out, he between New Zealand and Tonga — 5,155 

 fathoms (30,930ft.), latitude 30° 27' S. and longitude 176° 39' 

 W. ; so that the oceans would have to overflow the tops of the 

 Himalayas a couple of thousand feet before the supposed 

 sunken Pacific continent could be again exposed. 



Let us suppose a piece of land a hundred miles square, 

 like the narrow neck between Auckland and Onehunga, con- 

 taining a similar number of extinct craters sunk beneath the 

 sea in the tropics. The coral-polyp would begin its labours 

 directly from the top of the different extinct craters, go on 

 building upwards to the sea-surface, and we should have all 

 the evidences of atolls and circular-shaped reefs, but not, of 

 course, on so large a scale as we find in the Pacific. 



In the Sandwich Islands the United States steamer " Tusca- 

 rora," at a distance of only forty-three miles from Molokai, 

 found 3,023 fathoms, or over 18,138 ft. Add this to the height 

 of Maunakea, the highest point in Hawaii (13,805 ft.), and we 

 have 31,943 ft., or 3,773 ft. higher than the loftiest peak of 



