AGASSIZ: FIJI ISLANDS AND COKAL IlEEFS. 47 



establish the boring phant. Having a lighthouse on it, with a keeper 

 and assistants, it afforded unusual facilities for establishing a comfortable 

 camp for the boring crew, who were at work a couple of days after 

 landing. 



The following is the record of our boring at "VVailangilala.^ 

 From the surface — 



To 20 feet, coral and coralline sand with broken shells, like that on 

 the beach. 

 20-30 feet, coralline sand. 

 30-40 " coral and coralline sand, coarse. 

 40-50 '' fine coralline sand. 



49-51 " parts of core of yellow limestone (elev. limestone). 

 5i_(ji " " " " " " <' 



/?-|_'71 il (I I'. It II it (C 



71_H0 " " " " " " *' 



80-85 " " " " " 



It was on the western inner edge of the island (Plate 109) that I 

 established our boring apparatus, soon after arriving at Suva, and while 

 under the impression conveyed by the newspapers, and from published 

 reports, that the second Funafuti boi'iug expedition had demonstrated 

 that at the Funafuti atoll true coral reefs extended to a depth of 643 

 feet. This information seemed so positive that had it been received before 

 the shipping of my outfit to Fiji via Australia, I should have remained 

 at home, convinced that at any rate, whatever had been my experience in 

 the West Indies, Australia, and the Sandwich Island reefs, yet that in 

 a region of typical atolls in the Pacific the conditions of subsidence 

 suggested by Darwin and Dana might exist, unless the boring at Funa- 

 futi proved eventually, on closer examination, to have been can-ied on in 

 the sea face talus of a reef. But my outfit having left, I was not 

 prepared to accept the preliminary conclusions of Professor David as 

 recorded by the papers, and I started on my expedition ready to con- 

 firm by my own borings the truth of the great thickness of modern 

 coral reefs in atolls of the Pacific, or to give some other explanation 

 of this apparently overwhelming proof of the correctness of Dar- 

 win's theory. 



From what we saw of the elevated coralliferous limestone at Ngele 

 Levu, Vanua Mbalavu, Mango, and other points in Lau on our way to 

 Ongea, it was very evident that these limestones attained a great thick- 



1 The bore liole was about five feet above high water mark, and about thirty 

 feet from the shore line, a few feet nortli of the Landing (figure on page 45). 



