78 Couthouy on Coral Formations 



all the statements made in this communication, to rely upon 

 memory alone. I shall in another place, briefly give my rea- 

 sons for believing that the whole of Polynesia is at present 

 slowly rising, and proceed, here, with a few remarks suggest- 

 ing themselves at the moment, relative to its former subsi- 

 dence. 



It is not denied that some portions of this region may ex- 

 hibit certain peculiarities of structure, which, in the present 

 state of our information we may find some difficulty in recon- 

 ciling with this theory. 



But I feel persuaded, that as this is enlarged, as a greater 

 number of facts bearing on the question are brought together, 

 and we are enabled to fix with more certainty than can now 

 be done, the causes of such variations from a general charac- 

 ter, these will nearly if not quite all be found consistent with 

 the admission of a principle, which holds out a rational ex- 

 planation of phenomena, inexplicable upon any previous hy- 

 pothesis. 



The immensity of the tract, throughout which it is assumed 

 this subsidence or submergence of land has prevailed, will 

 appear less astonishing, when we reflect that nearly the whole 

 of that now elevated above the level of the ocean bears upon 

 its surface incontestable evidence of having been slowly up- 

 lifted from its depths, and that in some regions, as on the 

 Baltic coast, the process is still going on under our own obser- 

 vation. On the loftiest heights to which man has ascended, 

 as in the lowest vallies, the presence of beds of marine shells 

 and other fossils, attest that there once were the " foundations 

 of the great deep." Even in New Holland, whose animal and 

 vegetable productions difler so singularly from those of all the 

 world beside, as to leave conjecture itself at fault, in attempt- 

 ing to account for the fact ; and which a learned German 

 author, once gravely endeavored to show was the nucleus of 

 some comet that had come in collision with our planet — even 

 there, beds of marine limestone, and marine fossils of the 

 same genera, and evidently belonging to the same era as those 

 found in some of the Silurian rocks of Great Britain, have 

 lately been found in large numbers far inland and on the 



