IV 



FUNAFUTI: THE STUDY OF A COEAL 

 ATOLL 



BY far the largest portion of the untrodden surface of 

 our planet is formed by the floor of the Pacific 

 Ocean. Submerged at an average depth of over 1,000 

 fathoms, it lies out of reach of the geologist's hammer 

 for all time, and for the present at least is inaccessible 

 to the diamond drill.* The geology of an almost entire 

 hemisphere is thus the secret of the Pacific. 



" It is the nature of a God," Bacon quaintly remarks, 

 " to conceal a thing, it is the glory of a man to find it 

 out," and certainly there would seem to be few secrets 

 in Nature to which a clue has not somewhere been left 

 for those who have virtue to discover it. 



The mountainous margins of the ocean, still young and 

 actively moving, may doubtless furnish us with many 

 precious hints, but it is to the multitudinous islands, 

 which in serried rows like the tops of submerged 

 mountain-chains extend across it, that we must turn 

 in search of the true guiding thread. 



* Professors John Joly and Edgeworth David think it may be 

 possible by suitable machinery to bore a hole in the floor of the 

 deep sea. 



