PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION E. 567 
active, has become less eruptive. On the island of Ambrym, also, 
a great change has occurred, as previously noticed, and the larger 
volcano is extinct, but the smaller one, on the other side of the 
island, has become more active. On the hill side of Dillon’s Bay, 
Erromanga, I was struck by the peculiar geological formation ; 
interspersed with basaltic and lava rocks. I observed here and 
there blocks of coral, indicating that, at some period, that part of 
the land had been below the sea. Along the shore, outside the 
bay, high cavernous cliffs are seen. These are of coral and 
volcanic formation, and must at one time have been below the sea, 
for coral polypes do not work above high-water mark. 
(3).—THE TIDEs. 
A remarkable phenomenon in respect to the tides of the Pacific 
has been observed from the time of the earliest settlement in the 
Windwards and Society Islands, viz., the singular deviation from 
the universal rule of tides being governed by lunar and solar 
attractions. In this part of the Pacific high-water occurs about 
noon and at midnight, and the rise is very liimited—not exceeding 
fifteen or eighteen inches. The ebb tides occur correspondingly 
at about 6 o’clock in the morning and 6 in the evening. Regard- 
ing this phenomenon, the Rev. Mr. Nott, one of the earliest 
missionaries at Tahiti, wrote in 1834:—‘“From what I have 
observed during a long residence here, the rise of the tide is 
seldom more than a foot or fifteen inches, and there is no differ- 
ence between what is called the neap and the spring tides ; or, in 
other words, there is no difference in the tides at Tahiti, whether 
it be the full or change of the moon, half-moon, or quarter. 
There is, however, sometimes a higher sea about the change of 
the moon, because a change of the wind then frequently, but not 
always, happens. Nevertheless, the higher sea is not a higher 
tide, but it is owing to the change of the wind, or some great 
commotion at a distance, and never lasts more than four or five 
days, during which time the tides continue as usual, namely, high 
or full tide about noon (or from 12 to 1 in the day) and about 12 
at night, and ebb tide about 6 o’clock in the morning, and about 
the same hour in the evening. This is uniformly the time of full 
and ebb tides at Tahiti. . . . . At the islands of Tubuai 
and Raivavai the tide is much greater than at Tahiti, rising about 
two feet and a half.” (Tyerman and Bennet’s Voyage Round the 
World, p. viii.) Other missionaries, his contemporaries, confirm 
these remarks of Mr. Nott; one of these, the Rev. D. Darling, 
whose station was at Bunaauia, at the western side of Tahiti, 
adds—‘“ That the natives can always tell when it is midnight by 
going to the seashore.” Captain Cook remarked this peculiarity 
in the Georgian and Society Islands, but his editor falls into an 
error by supposing that this fixed time of the ebb and flow of the 
