CORAL REEFS AND SUBMARINE BANKS 393 
here, according to Becker, elevation has predominated in late 
Tertiary and post-Tertiary time; thus differential movements of 
Palawan and Luzon are suggested. Other differential movements 
of late date within the Philippines are abundantly proved by various 
records, such, for example, as the elevated reef terraces briefly 
described by Becker as occurring on the islands of Cebt and Negros 
(see below) but absent on neighboring islands. Evidence of recent 
and rapid subsidence in some of the Philippine Islands, as shown 
by their narrow, unconformable fringing reefs, will be presented in 
a forthcoming article in the Bulletin of the Geological Society of 
America. 
But besides all this it must be remembered that the China Sea 
is, unlike the shallow Yellow Sea on the north and the shallow 
Java Sea on the south, one of those deep mediterraneans that are 
inclosed along the eastern border of Asia by festoons of islands 
in which, geologically, modern movements are the rule. Darwin 
wrote of this region, ‘‘ Between the Indian and Pacificoceans .. . . 
north of Australia, lies the most broken land on the globe, and there 
the rising parts are surrounded and penetrated by areas of sub- 
sidence”’’ (143). He had little evidence on which to base his 
statement, but he was right. Molengraaff much later characterized 
the same region as follows: 
In the eastern part of the archipelago (between Borneo and Australia) 
where a complicated topography of the land and the sea bottom prevails, deep- 
sea basins have been formed by subsidence [in the ‘‘latest geological periods’’], 
and, during the same time, ranges of islands have been raised above the sea, 
caused by antagonistic movements which are probably still in progress. 
The same writer cites from the report of the Dutch “‘Siboga”’ expedi- 
tion a remarkable dredging record made on September 1, 1900, for 
the middle of the Ceram Sea, between Celebes and New Guinea: 
From a depth ranging from 1,633 to 1,304 m. over a distance of no less than 
three nautical miles, large quantities of recent, reef-building coral were there 
dredged, which . . . . by a thick cover of manganese revealed their long stay 
in the sea-water. ... . The nearest point in these regions where living reef- 
building corals occur near the surface lies at 42 kilometers from the point where 
the dredging took place. .... In order to explain the result of this dredging 
1G. A. F. Molengraaff, “On Recent Crustal Movements in the Island of Timor,” 
Proc. k. Akad. Wet. Amsterdam, XV (1913), 224-35. 
