io A NATURALIST IN THE PACIFIC chap. 



bay to Undu Point, a distance as the crow flies of about 50 miles ; 

 but I find no record in my notes of any elevated reef-formations. 

 However the calcareous nature of the volcanic tuffs exposed in 

 places at the coast indicate emergence. The extreme rarity, if not 

 the absence, of upraised reefs on this long stretch of coast, which is 

 usually bordered by shore-reefs, is very remarkable, more especially 

 since there is extensive evidence of upheaval in the plains of 

 Kalikoso in the interior, as indicated in the succeeding paragraph. 



On the other side of Undu Point, between that headland and 

 Lambasa, elevated reefs did not come under my observation, 

 although in the low-lying inland district of the Kalikoso lake 

 silicified corals are scattered about in quantity at an elevation of 

 20 or 30 feet above the sea. But the emergence of the sea-border 

 is shown in the occurrence of a " Globigerina " sedimentary tuff 

 near Visongo at a height of 200 feet (see page 221), and by the 

 occasionally calcareous character of the pumice-tuffs that mainly 

 compose the coast cliffs. Near Nukundamu these tuffs of the shore 

 cliffs inclose subangular fragments of massive corals of the size of 

 a walnut ; whilst in a cutting between Mbuthai-sau and Lambasa, 

 about 50 feet above the sea, I observed bits of coral limestone in a 

 basic tuff. Mr. Home refers to seams or layers of coral limestone 

 occurring in the volcanic agglomerate of the coast cliffs beween 

 Lambasa and Tutu Island. 1 Since his experience of this coast 

 was mostly confined to a passage in a canoe along the shore, it is 

 very probable that he only saw the beds of white pumice-tuffs that 

 prevail in places on this coast. I found no beds of coral limestone 

 in the shore-agglomerates of this coast, nor does Dana in his 

 description of the pumiceous formation of the cliffs of Mali Point 

 make any reference to them. 2 



Along the stretch of 50 miles of coast between Lambasa and 

 Naivaka upraised reefs are of infrequent occurrence. However 

 between Lambasa and Wailevu, coral limestone is extensively 

 exposed in a low range of hills a mile or two inland but not over 

 100 feet above the sea. No elevated reefs came under my notice 

 between the mouth of the Wailevu river and Nanduri Bay. That a 

 small upheaval has been recently in progress in this part of the 

 coast is indicated by two circumstances. In the first place an 

 erosion-line about a couple of feet 3 above the high-water line, and 



1 A Year in Fiji, 1881, pp. 22, 167. 



2 Geology of the United States Exploring Expedition, 1 849. 



3 This height has been supplied from memory, as I omitted to refer to the 

 exact level of the erosion line in my notes. 



