160 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 



the Pacific. All the acclamations with which his 

 theory was received were as the shouts of an ignorant 

 mob. The overthrow of Darwin's speculation is only 

 beginning to be known. It has been whispered for 

 some time. The cherished dogma has been dropping 

 very slowly out of sight. Can it be possible that 

 Darwin was wrong? Reluctantly, almost sulkily, 

 and with a grudging silence, as far as public dis- 

 cussion is concerned, the ugly possibility has been 

 contemplated as too disagreeable to be much talked 

 about. The evidence, old and new, has been 

 weighed, and weighed again, and the obviously 

 inclining balance has been looked at askance many 

 times. But despite all averted looks, I apprehend 

 that it has settled to its place for ever, and Darwin's 

 theory of the coral islands must be relegated to the 

 category of those many hypotheses which have, 

 indeed, helped science for a time, by promoting and 

 provoking further investigation, but which, in them- 

 selves, have now finally kicked the beam." He then 

 proceeds to state that corals build on a loose and 

 shifting foundation, which Darwin thought could 

 not be done, that by chemical and oceanic operations 

 the coral structure itself fell to pieces in the rear, 

 and that on this debris the polypes continued to 

 build while they kept up their operations in front, 

 thus gradually raising what would become a reef or 

 a lagoon. 



The Duke has probably somewhat exaggerated 

 the reluctance of the scientific world to admit that 

 Darwin was in error, but it is hardly denied by 

 any one that Murray's hypothesis explains some of 



