114 FOUNDERS OF OCEANOGRAPHY 



unrivalled experience, he is to be reckoned as a supporter in 

 the main of Murray's theory. When he first heard of it he 

 said, " This new view is founded on observation and can be 

 verified, and I'll attempt to do it, and will visit the coral-reef 

 regions for the purpose " ; and he certainly explored and 

 described and illustrated with much photographic detail 

 every important coral-reef region in the tropical Atlantic, 

 Pacific and Indian Oceans. When, in 1903, he gave an 

 address to the Royal Society of London on the subject, he 

 stated in the discussion that in all his investigations and 

 voyages he had not seen one single atoll or barrier reef which 

 could be said to be an illustration of the Darwinian theory of 

 coral reefs. 



According to Sir John Murray ^ Agassiz claimed to have 

 shown (1) that existing atolls and barrier reefs in no way 

 indicate the former position of shore-lines around islands 

 now deeply submerged ; (2) that the platforms or banks 

 from which atolls and reefs arise have been built up or 

 levelled down in a variety of ways and at different times, each 

 coral-reef region requiring to have its special conditions 

 studied, as no general law applies to all ; (3) that the 

 characteristic features of the atoll, the single shallow lagoon 

 and the surrounding rim of living coral with deep water 

 outside, can be explained by biological, chemical and 

 mechanical activities continuously in operation at the 

 present time, and that therefore the atoll and the barrier reef 

 cannot be accepted as evidence of subsidence ; the character- 

 istic features of these reefs might be developed in a stationary, 

 and in a slowly rising, as well as in a slowly sinking area ; 

 (4) that the coral atoll on reaching the surface would, under 

 certain conditions, advance seawards on a talus of its own 

 debris, expanding like a *' fairy ring" in grass, and his 

 interpretation of the Funafuti boring was that it was driven 

 down through such a talus with an underljdng tertiary base. 



As he returned from each of his expeditions with the result 

 ^ Bull. Mus. Comp. ZooL, Harvard, vol. 54, 3, 1911. 



