AGASSIZ : FIJI ISLANDS AND CORAL REEFS. 



SOME POINTS IN" THE LITERATURE ON CORAL REEFS. 



It will prevent considerable confusion if, before proceeding with the 

 account of our expedition to Fiji, I should devote a few pages to the 

 examination of some of the literature on coral reefs, in the liglit of 

 the observations we made while at Fiji. 



On looking over the literature on coral reefs, one cannot fail to be 

 struck with the amount of irrelevant matter which has been passed 

 down from writer to writer. Statements made on hearsay have gradu- 

 ally become facts. The observations of inexperienced persons receive 

 general recognition. Special cases are discussed without reference to 

 their limited or exceptional application. The whole question is often 

 threshed out de novo, so that it is difficult to separate the new from the 

 old. And, finally, information gathered from charts is substituted for 

 observation in dealing with questions which the latter alone can settle. 

 Every new investigator naturally adds important information from the 

 field he surveys, and each has in his way described the numerous and 

 varying conditions affecting the growth and existence of coral reefs in 

 the tropical waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific. Eecent explorations 

 Lave only increased the number of questions to be solved regarding 

 coral reefs ; and until the whole field has been examined in the light of 

 these questions, it is hopeless to attempt a general revision of the 

 theories regarding the formation of coral reefs. A revision based upon 

 a partial examination, though it be more extensive than that of our 

 predecessors, is usually brushed aside with the statement that even if 

 the exception described is true, the old theory may yet be true in some 

 other atoll region. Of course, such criticism can never end, and we may 

 go on searching forever for this imaginary atoll, or until the last remain- 

 ing atoll has been hunted down. 



In many quarters it has become a question of creed to uphold the 

 Darwinian theory of subsidence as essential to the formation of atolls 

 and of barrier reefs. Facts and arguments supporting other explana- 

 tions ai'B ignored or explained away in the most extraordinary manner. 

 Regions which are cited by Darwin and Dana as tjrpical become excep- 

 tions when shown to be no longer characteristic regions of subsidence. 

 Typical barrier reefs become patch reefs, atolls are dubbed pseudo 

 atolls ; so that the regions where true barrier reefs or typical atolls, 

 which owe their origin to subsidence, can be examined, are little by little 

 becoming very restricted. In fact, if we are to judge of the regions not 

 yet examined, and which have not been examined by Darwin and Dana, 



