in the Pacific, 6fc. 147 



not tacky or " happante''' to the tongue. They bear a very 

 close resemblance to our O. horealis, and it is remarkable that 

 although imbedded with it are found many shells which still 

 inhabit the adjacent coast in great numbers, the Ostrea is ap- 

 parently an extinct species. It was seen no where else in the 

 Pacific, neither so far as I could ascertain, is it met with either 

 fossil or recent on any other part of this coast. 



From Waialua on the north-west side of Oahu I received 

 specimens of a very hard and compact breccia of shells and 

 coral, said to be taken from cliffs of the same material twenty 

 feet high, which the description sent with the specimens left 

 me little doubt, were the remains of an ancient cemented co- 

 ral beach. 



On the coasts of Kauai there are frequent elevated beaches. 

 One of these at Kalihiwai, on the north side of the island, 

 three fourths of a mile inland, is composed of a slightly cohe- 

 rent conglomerate of coral and shells raised about fifteen feet. 

 Aged natives dwelling in the neighborhood, affirmed to me 

 that the sea had retired within their remembrance an eighth 

 of a mile, and that in their youth, old men had told them that 

 they in their boyhood fished in canoes at a spot now full one 

 third of a mile from the sea, which since that period, as they 

 forcibly expressed it, " ihanauia ka lepo hou,^^ literally, had 

 brought forth the new earth. Four or five miles west of this, 

 the river Hanalei, flowing through a plain of the same name 

 in the district of Waioli,* displays on its banks rather more 

 than a quarter of a mile from the sea, the section of an ancient 

 beach about five feet higher than the present one, and com- 

 posed of materials similar to that of Kahhiwai. This line of 

 beach extends from the base elevated table land, forming the 

 eastern boundary of the plain in a westerly direction three 

 miles across, to the foot of the lofty ridges of Marnalahoa and 

 Puiinauekia its limits on the opposite side ; following the cur- 



" Waioli signifies " the singing" or " the jyy/ul water," and is applied to this 

 region by the liawaiians, whose names are always not lesi poetical than de- 

 ■criptive, on account of the numerous glittering cascades that come singing and 

 leaping down from the lofty mountains by which it is girt on all sides but the 

 seaward one. 



