302 W. M. DAVIS 
segments and of depressed oceanic segments of earth’s crust adjoin; 
and that tracts of low resistance to deformation may be expected at 
or near the border of continents, “‘ where the crust is already flexed 
in its descent from the continental platforms to the ocean bottoms.’ 
Furthermore the China Sea, from the depths of which the 
Macclesfield bank rises, is bordered by embayed coasts on nearly 
all sides. The embayments of the coast of China in the Hong Kong 
district are manifestly due to the submergence of a maturely eroded 
mountainous area; the reef-free headland points are little clit, 
and the breadth as well as the probable rock-bottom depth of the 
bays appears to be greater than could have been produced by sub- 
aérial erosion during the glacial epochs of the glacial period; thus 
recent subsidence is indicated on that side of the China Sea. On the 
east the sea is inclosed by the Philippine Islands, where diverse 
earth movements of modern geological dates are abundantly proved. 
The southern part of the sea, where Tizard and other submarine 
banks rise, is inclosed on the east by the long island of Palawan, the 
southernmost member of the Philippine group, with a wonderfully 
embayed coast, as shown on Admiralty chart 967, or better on 
United States Coast Survey chart 4316; its headlands are not 
clift and are almost free from fringing reefs; they have a rapid 
descent to depths of from 15 to 25 fathoms close to the shore line. 
The chart has every appearance of accuracy; hence the absence of 
cliffs on the delicate spur-end points between the intricate embay- 
ments is significant. A submarine bank stretches westward from 
the embayed shore line; it is from 15 to 30 miles wide and from 4o to 
60 fathoms deep near its outer margin, where it is rimmed by an 
imperfect barrier reef that rises discontinuously toward the sea 
surface. It seems impossible to regard this broad bank as the work 
of abrasion, because the headlands of the coast behind it are not 
clift; it seems equally impossible to regard the broad embayments 
of the coast as the product of subaérial erosion during the epochs 
of lowered sea-level in the glacial period, because of. their great 
width; recent and rapid subsidence of a reef-fronted coast is thus 
strongly indicated. Farther north the west coast of Luzon is much 
less embayed than Palawan and is without a broad off-shore bank; 
t Geology, I (1904), 522; II (1904), 127. 
