ANDREWS: LIMESTONES OF THE FIJI ISLANDS. 45 
Tue Lav LimeEsTongESs. 
(a) A soft, porous stone, full of corals ix situ, shells, and a little cal- 
careous cement. The corals are no more compacted than one would 
expect to find in the reef area. The stone is usually white or yellow in 
color. A thin crust of hard material has gathered over the soft inte- 
rior. This crust, as well as the reef or coral talus itself, is extremely 
cavernous. This represents the raised coral material of the last 
upheaval. 
(6) A dense white rock, ringing under the hammer, generally exhibit- 
ing little or no trace of well-detined fossils. This is the raised limestone 
found near sea-level ; it is contemporaneous with (a), and represents the 
part of the “raised reef” platforms that is composed of the firmly 
cemented reef debris. 
(c) A compact stone ringing under the hammer containing corals. 
The color is white or yellow. It is pitted and cavernous, and weathers 
into long needles. This forms the roughest and most broken country in 
Fiji. It is the older coral mass of the high levels. 
(d) A rock similar in hardness, but presenting a marked difference in 
weathering, due to the difference of erosive influences on a homoge- 
neous rock and one varying considerably in minute structure. The 
coral reef is honeycombed, while the rock under consideration shows 
perfect examples of the minute-ridge structures. It is, as a rule, non- 
fossiliferous and homogeneous in structure. Such rock is found at the 
higher levels and represents the compact débris of pre-existing reefs. 
This is well seen at Ngillangillah. 
Of other formations we may note a stratified limestone, white, yellow, 
and brown in color, exceedingly compact and free from honeycombing or 
cavernous weathering. Very fine-grained rock, and apparently barren 
of fossils. This is the basal limestone underlying the reefs to the north 
of Vanua Mbalavu. 
A brown to red ferruginous mass, found encrusting the coastal cliffs 
at sea-levels. In the huge gaps cut out by the sea in the limestone cliffs 
these ferruginous masses simulate stalactitic and stalagmitic growths. 
Redeposition of calcareous matter charged with higher oxide of iron 
than was present in the rock prior to solution, or from the magnetite 
mentioned before, explains this stalagmitic growth. In some places this 
redeposition has advanced so far that.the former sea-ledges are partly or 
wholly obscured. 
