84 PBOCEEDINGS OF THE 



expeditions in the Iropical regions of tlie world. His three cruises 

 of tilt; ' Bhike ' in the West Indies and through the CaribheanSea 

 produced two admirable volumes. They give an excellent idea of 

 the topography of the Caribbean, with many notes and observa- 

 tions on the reefs of that region. In addition they give an account 

 of the deep-sea fauna as \\ell as chapters on deposits, the pelagic 

 fauna, and the Oulf Stream. Even at tlie present day there is no 

 better or more interesting book on the subject. Professor Agassi/, 

 paid further visits to tlie West Indies, particularly to the Bahaiiias, 

 and the elevated coral-reefs of Cuba : he also explored the elevated 

 reefs of Florida, and visited Hawaii and the west coast of North 

 America, going down to the Galapagos Islands. In the latter 

 cruise he was mainly interested in the surface population of the 

 ocean, which he had previously investigated in the Gulf Stream. 

 In 1S9() Professor Agassiz visited, in the steamer' Croydon,' which 

 he had himself chartered, the Great Barrier Eeef of Australia. He 

 gave the world an admirable account of the structure of the reef. 

 He confirmed Jukes's general analysis of its main features, but came 

 to the conclusion that it could not have been formed by subsidence 

 as was then generally supposed. In 1897 he visited the Fiji 

 Islands, exploring most of the " live "' and fossil reefs of that 

 archi|)elago ; in particular he examined the bai-rier reefs of the Lau 

 Archipelago, putting down a boring on Wailangalala. He also 

 examined many of the elevated coral limestone islands, thus 

 getting many sections of reefs up to 1 000 feet in vertical thickness. 

 He calculated that the islands of the whole group had been 

 elevated, had then remained nearly stationary, and that their 

 present conditions might be explained by prolonged denudation 

 and erosion. The " actual living reefs " were considered to be Hats 

 left by the erosion of a central island, while the lagoons had largely 

 been formed by the scouring action of the sea. In 1899 Pi-ofessor 

 Agassiz was in the North Pacific, but in 1901 he visited the 

 ]\Jaldi\'e iVrchipelago in the SS. ' Ann-a,' visiting every atoll of that 

 group. He gave us an important series of soundings between the 

 different atolls of that archipelago, enabling us to get the first clear 

 idea of its topography. In particular he inspected the northern 

 atolls, which had not previously been examined. Professor 

 Agassiz's next work \\as a long cruise which practically included 

 every group of coral islands in the Pacific Ocean. This was 

 followed by a dredging cruise down the eastern Pacific to Easter 

 Island, during which all kinds of oceanographical research were 

 carried out. The greatest interest is to be attached to these 

 explorations, since the eastern Pacific is the largest area of the 

 world absolutely uninterrupted by islands. An extensive, pecu- 

 liarly barren area was discovered to the east of ihe Marquesas 

 and Paumotus, and between these archipelagoes and the Soutli 

 American coast. 



The Reports on these Expeditions were mostly published in the 

 Bulletin and Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoology 



