in the Pacific^ ^c. 145 



em coast of Kauai, whose dip is 10° or 12° so that the edges 

 of the laminae at their landward termination, crop out a foot 

 or more above the beach. 



Throughout the volcanic islands of Polynesia the tokens of 

 recent elevation are every where conspicuous in a greater or 

 less degree. At the Society and Samoan groups may be seen 

 above water at low tide, corals in situ, whose upper portion 

 and frequently the entire mass is blackened, and their polypes 

 destroyed by exposure. 



At the north-west end of Manua, (the easternmost of the 

 Samoas,) fragments of coral, whose quantity and size are such 

 as to render it impossible that they were placed there by other 

 than natural agency, are to be seen at least eighty feet above 

 the sea, on a steep bill-side rising half a mile inland from 

 a low, sandy plain abounding in marine remains. These 

 fragments are imbedded in a mixture of decomposed lava, 

 mould and sand, and some of them are of such magnitude that 

 four stout natives could not turn them over. The immediate 

 coast is rocky and precipitous, the material, a partially decayed 

 lava having a stratified character, but the strata much dis- 

 torted and dislocated and in many places rent vertically asun- 

 der. At this end of the island there is no reef, properly so 

 called, the water shoaling gradually from thirty fathoms at a 

 quarter of a mile distance, till it breaks within a few yards of 

 the beach. There are, however, numerous scattered patches 

 and detached clusters of coral from a depth of ten fathoms to 

 where the sea breaks. 



At Tahiti I was informed, that on the sandy isthmus con- 

 necting the mountainous peninsulas of Tobreonu and Tiarabu 

 into which that island is divided, eight or ten feet below the 

 surface was a solid bed of coral rock, about the same num- 

 ber of feet above the sea. That this was formerly a reef con- 

 necting two islands is the more probable from there being 

 here an interruption of the present shore reef, the deep water 

 continuing quite to the beach. 



At the Hawaiian islands, which are still the seat of volcanic 

 action on a magnificent scale, the elevation has been much 

 greater and its proofs more appai'ent than perhaps in any other 



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