" A DROWNED CONTINENT 



A FEW years ago deep boring operations were undertaken 

 in the island of Funafuti, in the Ellice group of Polynesia, 

 with the primary object of ascertaining the depth to which 

 coral-rock, or limestone of coral origin, extends. As it was 

 found that such coral-made material extended to depths 

 far below the level at which living coral can exist, evidence 

 was afforded that the island had subsided. And as sub- 

 sidence was thus proved to have taken place in a single 

 island selected almost at random, the conclusion could 

 hardly be resisted that the greater part, if not the whole, 

 of Polynesia must likewise be a subsiding area, or, in other 

 words, the remnants of a drowned continent, some of the 

 higher lands of which are indicated by the atolls and other 

 islands of the Coral Sea. This raises the whole question as 

 to the permanence or otherwise of the great oceanic basins 

 and continental areas of the globe : a subject, it need 

 scarcely be said, having not only an intense interest of its 

 own, but also one of the utmost importance in regard to 

 many puzzling problems connected with the present and 

 past geographical distribution of terrestrial animals and 

 plants on the surface of the globe. 



Although it might well have been thought that opinion 

 in scientific matters would be unlikely to veer suddenly 

 round, and after tending strongly in one direction incline 

 with equal force in the one immediately opposite, yet 



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