78 FOUNDERS OF OCEANOGRAPHY 



felt to be a difficulty by many geologists, and showed that all 

 types of coral reef could be accounted for without subsidence, 

 and even in some cases along with elevation of land. 



Some of Murray's friends were disappointed that his 

 theory did not receive more serious and more immediate 

 attention, and the then Duke of Argyll wrote a couple of 

 articles with somewhat sensational titles — "A Great Lesson," 

 in the Nineteenth Century for September, 1887, and " A Con- 

 spiracy of Silence," in Nature for November 17, 1887 — 

 which gave rise to answers from some of the leading men of 

 science of the day, Huxley, Bonney, and Judd. Murray 

 went on his way undisturbed, collecting further evidence 

 and pubUshing at intervals further papers dealing with one 

 or another part of the large subject — such as his paper on the 

 structure and origin of coral reefs in the Proceedings of the 

 Royal Institution for 1888, his account of the Balfour Shoal 

 in the Coral Sea (1897), a submarine elevation in process of 

 being built up by calcareous deposits, his " Distribution of 

 Pelagic Foraminifera at the surface and on the floor of the 

 Ocean " (1897), and a series of reports upon bottom deposits 

 from the " Blake " (1885) and many other expeditions. 



Later on (1896-8) Murray took a lively interest in the 

 investigation, by a Committee of the British Association and 

 the Royal Society, of a selected typical case, the atoll of 

 Funafuti, one of the EUice Group, in the South Pacific. A 

 first expedition was sent out from this country under Pro- 

 fessor Sollas, and then two others from Austraha, under 

 Professor Edgeworth David, of Sydney, and borings were 

 eventually obtained reaching an extreme depth of over 1,100 

 feet. The core was brought home and subjected to detailed 

 microscopic examination, with the extraordinary result that 

 the supporters of both rival theories find that it can be 

 interpreted so as to support their views. The Funafuti 

 boring cannot be said to have settled the matter. I beUeve 

 the verdict at the present time of most zoologists and geolo- 

 gists would be that whereas Darwin's beautiful theory would 



