MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 167 



the wind, which sometimes drives columns of sand miles along the beach. 

 This is the material which forms the fine coral sand beach reaching from 

 Wailuku to Paia. 



The stratified coral sand rock seen by Captain Dutton ^ at Diamond 

 Head, and to the east of the village of Wailuku on Maui, which he takes 

 as evidence of a recent upheaval of two hundred feet, and perhaps more, 

 are only consolidated sand drifts, such as I have described above. There 

 certainly is nothing in the character of this aeolian coral limestone to 

 compare with the consolidated reef rock at the level of the sea. The 

 shells he mentioned as imbedded in it have either been blown up by the 

 violent winter gales, or are the shells of gastropods carried up by hermit 

 crabs, which I have often met with more than a mile from the coast 

 in their wanderings. 



I have not seen on the shores of Maui coral ledges indicating any ele- 

 vation. The highest masses of coral rock are fully within the reach of 

 the action of moderate, or even very heavy seas. The observations of 

 Rev. Mr. Andrews, quoted by Dana, in regard to the possible elevation 

 of Molokai and Maui, do not appear to me to indicate anything beyond 

 coral sand dunes. 



The existence of coral sandstone on the east slope of West IMaui at a 

 considerable height, over extensive tracts, does not indicate any eleva- 

 tion, but is due merely to the seolian deposits which have found their 

 way to certain favorably situated places under the action of the pre- 

 vailing trade winds. Nowhere in the district I have examined on Maui 

 have I succeeded in finding any trace of corals beyond the height to 

 which fragments might be carried by the action of the waves or wind 

 and tides of unusually severe storms. The bedding of the sandstones 

 at considerable heights was evidently entirely due, as has been shown 

 by Dana, to the successive deposits of sand cemented together by inter- 

 rupted rain fall, forming the delicate crusts which separate the various 

 thin layers of coral sandstone which have accumulated at certain points. 



I was greatly interested, on visiting the long coral sand beach which 



extends from Kahului to Hamakuapoko, to find very much the same 



action going on in the formation of coral conglomerate, breccia, and oolite, 



which I had so often watched at Loggerhead Key, and on the island of 



Key West on the beach north of Fort Taylor. This action was, however, 



modified by the fact that a much heavier sea, due to the trade winds, 



was driving upon the surface of the reef off the beach, and was still pow- 



1 Hawaiian Volcanoes, by Capt. Clarence Edward Dutton. Fourth Annual 

 Report of U. S. Geological Survey, 1882-83. Washington, 1884, p. 81. 



