OBJECTIONS TO THE THEORY OF SUBSIDENCE. Oy, 
encircled in a single belt; and it would be dog no violence 
to principles or probabilities to suppose them once to have 
formed a single island, which subsidence has separated by 
inundating the low intermediate area. We may thus not 
only trace out the general form of the land which once occu- 
pied this large area (at least 10,000 square miles), but may 
detect some of its prominent capes, as in Wakaia and Direc- 
tion Island. The present area is not far from 4,500 square 
miles. The Feejee Group, exclusive of coral islets, includes 
an area of about 5,500 square miles of dry land; while, at 
the period when the corals commenced to grow, there were 
at least, as the facts show, 15,000 square miles of land, or 
nearly three times the present extent of habitable surface. 
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“OBJECTIONS TO THE SUBSIDENCE THEORY. 
The objections to the theory of coral reefs which have 
been recently urged are mostly independent hypotheses which 
are supposed to meet the facts without requiring subsidence, 
and not strictly objections to Darwin’s theory. Two or three 
real objections, however, are among them. The discussion 
brings out many points of interest. 
An improbability. — So extremely slow a subsidence, keep- 
ing pace so well with the upward growth, is improbable. 
This objection is put forth by those who are not aware that 
so slow subsidences are those with which geology is most 
familiar. A movement of the kind has been proved to be 
in progress along the coast of New Jersey and some other 
parts of the North American Atlantic border, and in western 
Greenland ; and geology is now inquiring as to whether any 
regions are absolutely stable, or wholly free from movement 
up or down. 
