1899] FUNAFUTI: THE STUDY OF A CORAL ATOLL 23 



The publication of Sir John Murray's views was followed by a 

 long controversy, in which Darwin's theory was subjected to a most 

 searching criticism. An impartial summary of the arguments arrayed 

 011 both sides of the question is given by Professor Bonney, in the last 

 edition of Darwin's " Coral Reefs," and the general subject is treated in 

 the fullest manner by Langenbeck, in a work entitled " Die Theorieen 

 ueber die Entstehung der Koralleninseln unci Ivorallenriffe " (Leipzig, 

 1890). 



So far as the opposition to Darwin's views has come to count 

 among its adherents a number of distinguished thinkers, it can only 

 be regarded as having achieved a certain measure of success : a result 

 not, to my thinking, to be wholly accounted for by the nature of the 

 arguments employed ; possibly in this as in similar cases, the ostensible 

 objections are mere weapons of combat, while the real power has lain 

 in the strong and subtle influence exercised by some general current 

 of thought. Such a current is indicated in the tendency to a belief 

 in what is spoken of as the Permanence of Continental Areas and 

 Oceanic Basins. 



According to Darwin, every atoll marks the site of a vanished 

 island, but the atolls of the Pacific are so numerous that if one 

 imagines all the islands they represent as summoned back from the 

 " vasty deep " and restored to their original position above the sea, 

 they will constitute a very considerable tract of land, and this situated 

 in the very middle of the Pacific Ocean. Such a prospect could not 

 fail to be unpleasing to those who believed in the immutability of the 

 ocean. 



Of late years, however, this doctrine of " permanence " has begun 

 to look a little threadbare. In a theoretical restoration of the dis- 

 tribution of land and sea during the Jurassic times, Neumayr has 

 treated it with scant consideration, since he represents the North and 

 South Atlantic, as well as the Indian Ocean, as then to a great extent 

 occupied by land, and it is now very generally supposed that this land 

 did not disappear to make way for existing seas till a comparatively 

 late period in the history of the earth. Bold as Neumayr showed him- 

 self in the treatment of these oceans, he had not the temerity to take 

 liberties with the Pacific. This he and geologists in general are disposed 

 to regard as having maintained its existing features from a very early 

 period : of this ocean, and of it alone would they exclaim, " Such as 

 Creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now." 



Darwin's theory, as we have seen, does not hesitate to recall to 

 existence land in the middle of even this ocean ; this is its unforgiv- 

 able offence — it lays sacrilegious hands on the Pacific, and thus attacks 

 the doctrine of " permanence " in its stronghold. 



While the recent controversy on Darwin's theory was at its 

 fiercest, and both sides seemed equally persuaded that the truth was 

 theirs and must prevail, it occurred to me that a simple solution 



