104 FOYE. 



Limestones and Marbles. It is believed that all the limestones of 

 Fiji are coralliferous. Some writers have spoken of the limestones of 

 central Viti Levu and Vanua Mbalavu as massive and have inferred 

 that they were formed l)y other agencies. ]Many of the interior 

 limestones are so recrystallized that their structure is almost lost, and 

 folding has transformed some of the limestone members to marble. 

 But the writer found corals associated with the basal layers of this 

 series and Mr. C. A. Holmes of the Lands Department, Suva, states 

 that corals occur in the limestones of the inland valleys near the head 

 of the Navua River. 



The colors of the limestones are prevailingly cream-white, pink, 

 and brick-red. An exceptional silver-gray limestone (weathering 

 to a cream tint) was found near Lambasa, on the northern coast of 

 Vanua Levu. Its color is the more remarkable since it is a very pure 

 limestone and is burned for lime by the Colonial Sugar Refining 

 Company. 



Two partial analyses of the rock, supplied through the kindness of 

 Manager Berry, are as follows : — 



Best Worst 



Insol 2.18 



Sol. SiOs 46 ' ^-^^ 



Al-f-Fe 1.37 5.54 



CaO 52.96 37.68 



MgO 89 1.27 



CO2 41.20 29.60 



H2O 58 4.46 



Organic .36 1 . 82 



100.00 100.00 



The residual, hoodoo peaks of limestone which dot the landscape 

 in certain parts of Fiji are composed of a cream-white or pink lime 

 stone. At the surface this is cavernous but in depth most of these 

 cavities are filled with crystalline calcite, not yet dissolved out. 

 Even the pink varieties have only a slight amount of iron oxide which 

 gives them their color, as shown by the analyses of Skeats (1903, 

 p. 124). It is important here to note that selective solution probably 

 accounts for the high content of magnesia in these residual peaks. 

 Skeats found " the occurrence of dolomite at the summits of many of 

 the islands. . . .significant." 



The pink and brick-red colors are closely related and are due to the 

 oxidation of the marl antl volcanic waste ileposited as a fine sediment 



