CORAL REEFS. 325 



Cape what he considers the true cause ? Let any mountain 

 be submerged gradually, and coral grow in the sea in which 

 it is sinking, and there will be a ring of coral, and finally only 

 a lagoon in the centre. Why ? For the same reason that a 

 barrier reef of coral grows along certain coasts : Australia, &c. 

 Coral islands are the last efforts of drowning continents to lift 

 their heads above water. Regions of elevation and subsidence 

 in the ocean may be traced by the state of the coral reefs." 

 There is little to be said as to published contemporary criti- 

 cism. The book was not reviewed in the ' Quarterly Review ' 

 till 1847, when a favourable notice was given. The reviewer 

 speaks of the " bold and startling " character of the work, but 

 seems to recognize the fact that the views are generally 

 accepted by geologists. By that time the minds of men were 

 becoming more ready to receive geology of this type. Even 

 ten years before, in 1837, Lyell * says, "people are now much 

 better prepared to believe Darwin when he advances proofs 

 of the slow rise of the Andes, than they were in 1830, when I 

 first startled them with that doctrine." This sentence refers 

 to the theory elaborated in my father's geological observa- 

 tions on South America (1846), but the gradual change in 

 receptivity of the geological mind must have been favourable 

 to all his geological work. Nevertheless, Lyell seems at first 

 not to have expected any ready acceptance of the Coral 

 theory ; thus he wrote to my father in 1837 : " I could think 

 of nothing for days after your lesson on coral reefs, but of the 

 tops of submerged continents. It is all true, but do not 

 flatter yourself that you will be believed till you are growing 

 bald like me, with hard work and vexation at the incredulity 

 of the world." 



The second part of the ' Geology of the Voyage of the 

 Beagle? i.e. the volume on Volcanic Islands, which specially 

 concerns us now, cannot be better described than by" again 

 quoting from Professor Geikie (p. 1 8) : 



* ' Life of Sir Charles Lyell,' vol. ii. p. 6. 



Z 2 



