fe BULLETIN: MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 
varying dimensions, — areas which might be of considerable extent, like 
the Exploring Isles, the Argo Reefs, or smaller areas, like Yangasé, 
Oneata, Ongea, Fulanga, and the like, or smaller peaks forming atolls of 
very limited circumference, like Wailangilala, Nuku Mbasanga, or iso- 
lated limestone rocks of still smaller dimensions, like Vekai, Tavunasithi, 
and others. 
Of course numerous soundings among the islands of the Eastern Archi- 
pelago of Fiji are needed to ascertain the existence of a more or less 
continuous plateau of coralliferous tertiary limestone deposited either by 
accretions upon its surface or formed during subsidence. 
I brought to Suva a complete diamond-drill boring apparatus and a 
competent man to superintend the work, Mr. William Eyers, recom- 
mended to us by the Sullivan Machine Company of Chicago, from whom 
the apparatus was obtained. A comparatively small hand machine was 
sent, capable of drilling to a depth of from four to five hundred feet ; 
an oil motor was also provided to expedite the work with increasing 
depth. This machinery had been shipped when information reached 
the United States that Professor David of the University of Sydney 
had left for Funafuti in charge of an expedition to take up the work 
where it was left by Professor Sollas, the head of the expedition, assisted 
by the council of the Royal Society of London.* The day before leaving 
Cambridge for the Pacific, we heard that Professor David’s party had 
succeeded in reaching a depth of nearly 600 feet, the bottom being still 
in coral. This information seemed to settle the coral question, and all 
I hoped to accomplish was merely to confirm the work of Professor 
David by boring in some other district. Subsequent information re- 
ceived from him leads me to think that the matter is not so simple 
as represented by the newspapers, and from what I have seen thus far 
in the Fiji Island reefs I can only conclude that the boring at Funafuti 
has settled nothing, and that we are still as far as ever from having a 
general theory of the formation of coral reefs. In fact, with the present 
information obtained in Fiji, I should never have thought of boring in 
the atolls of that group, for reasons which will be given presently. 
This evidence shows that any result obtained would merely indicate 
the thickness of the former elevated limestones at any particular point ; 
information which could have no bearing on the main question, if I am 
1 T have to thank the Trustees of the Bache Fund of the National Academy of 
Science at Washington for an appropriation of $1,200 towards defraying a part of 
the expenses of the boring. 
2 Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, March, 1897, p. 502. 
