in the Pacific^ S^c, 149 



From all the evidence I could collect, either by personal 

 observation or inquiry, it is my belief that the sea instead of 

 augmenting the coast, is yearly encroaching upon it and re- 

 gaining its previous loss by elevation. The surf which rolls 

 in from the broad open bay of Hanalei, especially during the 

 winter months, with tremendous violence, must operate de- 

 structively upon a beach shelving into deep water so abruptly 

 as this. 



There is a short beach a mile and a half perhaps from that 

 of Hanalei, between the river Lumahae and the ridge of 

 Puiinauekia, which during the winter is sometimes three hun- 

 dred yards wide, and is every summer narrowed to twenty or 

 twentyfive yards, yet no corresponding increase takes place 

 during the latter season in the main beach. Yet it is evident- 

 ly the waste of this which contributes to widen the other, it 

 being the only one in the vicinity capable of furnishing the 

 material. If the plain was of gradual formation by succes- 

 sive increment, as a natural consequence the surface soil 

 would be deepest on the inland or older portion, whereas 

 it is of the same thickness one hundred yards from the sea as 

 at the ancient line of coast. Moreover, a transverse section 

 of both the ancient and modern beaches, exhibits a ridge 

 composed of coral in considerable fragments, entire shells, 

 Echinides, &c. mixed with a rather coarse coralline sand, and 

 if the intervening space were merely a succession of similar 

 beaches there is no reason why it should not be similarly con- 

 stituted. But instead of this it contains only a few scattered 

 corals in small pieces, the shells in it are small and broken up 

 and the sand is very fine, much of it being of volcanic ori- 

 gin ; the whole appearing like the finer and heavier particles, 

 now being washed from the beach and carried seaward by the 

 recoil and undertow of the surf. Adding to these facts that 

 of the dip northward, of the lower bed of laminar concre- 

 tions, I think the plain of Hanalei should be classed among 

 the instances of elevation by subterranean forces. The man- 

 ner in which the strata of cemented coralline sand are tilted 

 up in the vicinity of Wailua has already been described. At 

 Anahola a few miles north of this, half a mile from the sea is 



