Phillips. — On the Volcanoes of the Pacific. 525 



colonies, just as the Spaniards wiped out that same gentle 

 race. 



Neither the ruins at Ponape nor the Langiis at Tongatabu 

 show much alteration in land-levels, so that those that sup- 

 port the theory of a great sunken continent in the Pacific will 

 have to account for this absence of alteration during the past 

 four to five thousand years. I am rather inclined to think, 

 from the volcanic phenomena I am pointing out, that the 

 tendency has been slight upheaval, together with subsidence. 

 Nature appears to me to be so steady in all its physical phe- 

 nomena that I can find nowhere evidences of great subsidence, 

 or buckling, or even crumpling, in the earth's crust. There is 

 a slight movement I admit, but so slight that it takes years 

 and vears for us even to notice it, such as the alteration in 

 land — and I may be allowed to say sea — levels of the east and 

 west coasts of the North and South American Continent. 

 Directly there is too much subsidence, and the sea-water too 

 readily finds its way to the central lava, immediately that por- 

 tion of the globe becomes, as it were, a steam-boiler, and the 

 crust is puffed out again into its proper shape, the extra 

 steam escaping through or forming a near volcanic vent. 



The whole of the central and eastern islands of the Pacific 

 appear to me to be purely volcanic, for even what we name 

 the "coral islands" are built up by the coral polyp from a 

 volcanic base. What we call "atolls" are only the tops of 

 ■extinct craters or volcanic hills, subsiding from the result of 

 previous volcanic action. If built on the tops of craters, then 

 the entrances should be in the direction of the prevailing 

 wind, as that would be the lowest point of the crater (per- 

 haps some of the captains of the Union Steamship Company 

 would tell us whether this is so). But this rule would be 

 subject to the varied work of the coral polyp. I only throw 

 the suggestion out now for subsequent observation. The 

 trend of the islands is certainly south-east and north-west, 

 which also is, I think, the direction of the prevailing winds in 

 the South Pacific. 



In Samoa there are no permanently active present vol- 

 canoes. The group appears to lie almost outside the present 

 line of active volcanic action ; it is simply a cluster of extinct 

 volcanoes. During the hurricane of the 26th March, 1883, 

 all the vessels that were in Apia Harbour, except one small 

 schooner, were driven out to sea and lost, this being attributed 

 to a number of heavy waves, caused by earthquake. (To me 

 it appears that the hurricane was the cause of the disaster, 

 and not the earthquake.) Again, on the 12th September, 

 1866, dense masses of smoke arose from the sea near Tau 

 Island and Orosenga (sometimes called Olusinga), and con- 

 tinued till the middle of November. The outbreak was pre- 



