ALEXANDER AGASSIZ MAYER. 465 



He had now seen all of tlie coral reefs of the Atlantic and turned 

 his attention to the exploration of the Pacific. In April and May, 

 1896, he cruised along the Great Barrier Reef of Australia in the 

 little steamer Croydon^ which he chartered from the Australian 

 United Steam Navigation Co., Capt. W. C. Thomson being in com- 

 mand. The voyage began at Brisbane in April, extended northward 

 to the Hope Islands, and ended at Cooktow^n in May. Unfortunately, 

 he had come to Australia in the height of the trade-wind season, and 

 the almost constant gale gTeatly hindered the work of his expedition. 

 Indeed, during more than a month of cruising he could spend only 

 three days on the outer reefs, and the dredging and study of marine 

 life which he had hoped to carry out were practically abandoned. 



He concluded that the many islands and submerged fiats off the 

 Queensland coast were once connected with the mainland, but have 

 been separated from the continent by erosion and denudation. After 

 the formation of these flats and islands corals grew upon them. The 

 recent reefs have been elevated at least 10 feet, and do not owe their 

 contours to subsidence, yet they form true atolls. The inner channels 

 of the Barrier Eeef are maintained free of corals by the great amount 

 of silt held in suspension in the water or deposited to form a blue 

 mud over the bottom. Thus there appears to be nothing in the Great 

 Barrier Reef region to lend support to Darwin's theory of coral 

 reefs. 



A tangible result of this expedition was the enriching of the 

 museum at Cambridge by a great collection of Barrier Reef corals 

 gathered under Alexander Agassiz's auspices by H. A. Ward. 



His experience in Australia taught him to avoid the trade-wind 

 season and henceforth his expeditions to coral seas were timed so 

 that he cruised among the reefs in the late spring and early summer 

 months when the trades have died out into the long hot days of calm 

 which precede the coming of the hurricanes. This interval when the 

 torrid sea is sleeping gave him the opportunity to land on many a 

 jagged shore that defied approach at other seasons. He then could 

 wade through the still waters over the coral reefs, and unravel at his 

 will the secrets of the atolls, composed as they are of wave-tossed 

 fragments that once were shells of mollusks or skeletons of creatures 

 of the reefs. His overmastering interest carried him to the shores of 

 hundreds of these distant atolls where the coco palm, the Pandanus^ 

 and the fishes of the reef afford the onl}^ sustenance for man, where 

 there are no hills or streams and the land is only a narrow strip 

 across which one hears constantly the roar of heavy breakers. 



These years of cruising accentuated his already predominant self- 

 reliance, for the commander of a marine expedition must needs be an 

 autocrat by profession. He was accustomed to command and to be 

 obeyed and his relation to the Harvard Museum during these later 

 97578°— SM 1910 30 



