AGASSIZ: BAHAMAS. 171 



win's Coral Reefs, edited by Professor Bonney ; * in the interesting review- 

 by Dana of the whole subject in the American Journal of .Science (1885, 

 Vol. XXX. pp. 89, 1G9) and in the new edition of Dana's Corals and Coral 

 Islands (New York, 1890), with the Appendix on the Sandwich Islands ; 2 

 and in the essay by Dr. Laugenbeck 3 on the Theories of the Origin of 

 Coral Islands and Coral Reefs. 



In this chapter I shall bring together and discuss only such questions 

 as have naturally been suggested by my explorations of the Bahamas, 

 the Florida Reefs, the Cuban elevated reefs, and the reefs of the Wind- 

 ward Islands. Minor points will be found referred to in other places of 

 this report, and in the articles of the Duke of Argyll and of Professor 

 Huxley, as well as in the more recent communications in " Nature" and 

 elsewhere by Murray, J. C. and G. C. Ross, Irvine, Harrison and Browne, 

 Bourne, Guppy, Hicksou, Captain Wharton, Studer, Ortmann, Dall, Bal- 

 four, H. 0. Forbes, Supan, Perrier, Heilprin, Captain Moore, Sluiter, 

 Walther, Lendenfeld, Kent, 4 and many others, as well as the Presidential 

 Addresses of Sir Archibald Geikie and of Professor James Geikie at Edin- 

 burgh in 1883 and 1892. 



While it is undoubtedly true, as Professor Bonney states, that many 

 of Darwin's critics may have perused his book with overmuch haste, yet 

 he must admit that when explorers examined the coral reefs of districts 

 which apparently had nothing in common with coral reefs formed in 

 areas of subsidence, it was most natural that they should seek some other 



1 The Structure and Distribution of Coral Eeefs, by Charles Darwin. Third 

 Edition. With an Appendix by Prof. T. G. Bonney. London, 1889. 



2 See also A. Agassiz, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., Vol. XVII. No. 3, p. 121, 1889, 

 "The Coral Reefs of the Hawaian Islands." 



3 Die Theorien iiber die Entstehung der Koralleninseln und Korallenriffe und 

 ihre Bedeutung fiir Geophysischen Fragen. Von Dr. R. Lansienbeck. Leipzig, 1890. 



* Kent, in his Monograph of the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, has added com- 

 paratively little to our knowledge of the theory of its formation. " He looks for the 

 conditions of subsidence which have made the formation of the Great Barrier Reef 

 possible in the former undoubted connection of Australia with Tasmania and New 

 Guinea ; and if that is not satisfactory, he is quite ready to call upon a still greater 

 subsidence of the Australian continent as shown by its presumed connection with 

 New Zealand. If, as is probable, and as Mr. Kent suggests, the Great Barrier Reef 

 existed as a narrow fringing reef in the late Tertiary, there has elapsed more than 

 ample time also for its transformation into the Great Barrier Reef of to-day from 

 other causes than those called upon by him. The Great Barrier Reef has entirely 

 obliterated the Australian coast shelf itself, and it may have found upon that all the 

 conditions of depth for the vigorous growth, both vertically and laterally, of the 

 original insignificant fringing reef of the northeastern coast of Australia." — Nation, 

 No. 1463, July, 1893. 



