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origm , to be hereafter more fully uoticed. We cannot however 

 agree witli Mr. Daiiwin, in taking an average breadtli of the 

 range, nor in crowding several of them together, because we 

 know, that they are on tvvo parallel lines, the eastern having 

 many more, and therefore being much longer than the western, 

 and, there being no more than nineteen altogether, if several 

 of them were crowded together, they could scarcely extend over 

 a length of four hundred and eighty miles, without leaving much 

 wider spaces intervening, than any that are actually to be found. 

 The northward prolongation of the New Caledonian reefs, 

 are not // toioards ^"^ but onwards , from the northern end of 

 that island, at which end, the central ridge is separated into 

 two , having a valley intervening between. On the submarine (1) 

 prolongations of these two ridges and valley, and on eminences 

 in the latter, those northern prolongations of reefs and isles 

 are in all probability based. We see no reason for assuming, 

 that the gradual subsidence of such an island as New Caledo- 

 nia could produce a range of lagoons, at all similar to that 

 of the Maldives, but we do see, the following reasons why it 

 could not. As soon as the bottoms of the lowest places of the 

 coast sunk below the level of low water spring tides, the coral 

 builders would commence their work, and elevate these (ac- 

 cording to Mr. Darwin's own assumptions) pari passie, with 

 the subsidence of the higher , and higher lands , so finally com- 

 pleting an unbroken line, or lines of reef, from the one end 

 to the other of the submerged island. Tor any // accidental 

 breaks," in the continuity of the reef," so formed, we cannot 

 perceive any reasonably assignable cause, always excepting Mr. 

 Darwik's earthquakes, of the Cocos and Vanikoro species, 

 nor even scarcely those, for the production of such unfathom- 

 ably decp and wide channels, as those between the Maldivian 

 atolls. l^arther, the assumption of a rent, or separation in such 



(1) 1 picfer the term vsubrnarine" to submerged, because the laller in- 

 Tolvcs the assumption of the laiul having j)reviously stood aboye the sea, 

 •m assumption not to Le raade or granted , without pioofs , being adducible. 



