Theory of alternate Elevation and Depression exemplified. 58^ 



high state of civilization in those who erected them. Some 

 of the blocks are 8 or 10 feet long, hexagonal, and must 

 evidently have been brought from some other country, since, 

 witli the exception of these, there are no other stones of a 

 similar description found in any part of the island. Streets 

 are laid out at various points, and the whole settlement seems 

 to have consisted of a range of strongly fortified dwellings.* 



These columns and blocks, however, possess a special 

 interest not merely in the history of civilization, but of geology, 

 as a part is at present under water, and can only be reached 

 in canoes, a difficulty which cannot have been in existence 

 at the period of their erection. AVhat once were streets are 

 now passages for canoes, and were the walls, built of massive 

 basalt blocks, to be pulled up, the water woidd obtain access 

 to the inclosed space. This has induced later geologists to 

 refer this phenomenon to a sinking of the entii^e group, so 

 that Puynipet is perhaps the only spot on the earth where 

 Darwin's ingenious theory of the construction of perpendicu- 

 lar reefs and atolls being the result of a sinking of the soil 

 on which the coral-animal had begun to erect his edifice, re- 

 ceives confirmation from the existence of the remains of 

 man's handiwork within the historic period. 



As even the ''oldest inhabitants " could give us not the 

 slightest information as to these ruins, and their origin and 



* Similar ruins are described by Captain Cheyne as having been also found in 

 the forests of Nalan (Strong Island) in the Caroline Archipelago, 5" 21' 30" N., 

 1G3" 0' 42' E. 



