134 BULLETIN : MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 



the present epoch there was an extensive elevation, which hfted the 

 great masses of coralHferous hmestone resting upon the flanks of the 

 islands to a considerable height, in Some cases as high as 1,000 feet. 

 The base of the limestone masses rests upon volcanic rocks, as can be 

 seen at Suva, at Kambara (Plate 78), at !Mango, at Lakeraba, at Xai- 

 tamba, and at Vanua Mbalavu (Plate 72) it shows the thickness of the 

 elevated reefs to have been over 800 feet. During this period of uplift 

 the physiognomy of the islands of the group must have been greatly 

 changed, and still further modified by the denudation and erosion which 

 have taken place since the elevation of the ancient limestones. It is to 

 the changes brought about by the elevation and the subsequent erosion 

 and denudation that we must look for the causes which have fashioned 

 the steep slopes of the islands and reefs, and not to the growth of the 

 thin crust of corals which thrive upon the reef flats forming the sub- 

 stratum of the modern reef, — a substratum which in Fiji may be of 

 volcanic origin or composed of elevated limestone, the sea face of which 

 is the extension of the former land mass and follows its ancient slope, 

 being only slightly modified by the growth of the crust of recent corals 

 found upon it. 



Similar elevated reefs (probtibly composed of the same tertiary lime- 

 stone as those of Fiji) have been described by Clark ^ at the Loyalty 

 Islands, and also by Chambeyron (L.)," and Pelatan (L.).^ Chambey- 

 ron gives figures of the elevated terraces of Lifou and Ouvea composed 

 of coralliferous limestone, and there is an excellent photograph taken by 

 Pelatan of the elevated coral reefs of Lifou, and reproduced in Bernard's* 

 Nouvelle Caledonie, p. 45. AYhile Mare is said by Pelatan to have five 

 terraces of elevated coralliferous limestone, and to be riddled with cav- 

 erns,^ Clark considers the elevated coralliferous limestones of the Loyalty 

 Islands probably to be Pleistocene. 



In the Solomon Islands, Guppy^ has traced extensive elevated reefs, 



1 Q. J. Geol. Soc. London. 1847. Vol. III. p. 61. 



2 Bull. Soc. Geogr., 1875, p. 566, and Bull. Soc. Geogr., 1876, p. 634. 



3 Les T^lines de la Nouvelle Calodonie. 



4 L'Archipel de la Xouvelle Caledonie, par Augustin Bernard. Paris, 1895. 



5 See also De. Roclias. La Kouvelle Caledonie, p. 90. Grundman, Die Loyalty 

 Inseln, Peterm. Mittheil., 1870, p. 365. 



6 Guppy, The Solomon Islands, 1887, p. 126, and Scott, Geog. :\laj;., 1888, 

 p. 121, a criticism of the theory of subsidence as affecting coral reefs. Geol. of the 

 New Hebrides, Friedrick, Q. J. Geol. Soc. London, 1893, XLIX. 227. Campbell, R., 

 Geol. Soc. of Australasia, Melbourne, 1889, VI. 19. Strehl, Zeit. f. Wiss. Geog. 

 Erganz., No. 3, 1890. J. Walther. Bau d. Flexuren, Jena Zeits. f. Nat., 1886, p. 243. 

 J. Gamier, Ann. d. Mines, 1867, p. 59. Walther, Adamsbriicke, Peterm. Erganz., 

 Ko. 102. 



