CORAL REEFS AND SUBMARINE BANKS 395 
Philippines: Becker states that there is a great unconformity on 
Cebu and Negros between the Miocene lignitic series and the coral- 
limestone mantle, which in Cebé extends to an altitude of 2,362 
feet; Smith gives an account of the island of Cebd, the strata of 
which have suffered profound folding and much erosion followed 
by submergence, reef formation, and emergence. 
Instability of this region is also to be inferred from the mention 
of disturbed Tertiary deposits in Kot6’s account of the Malayan 
Archipelago,’ and in Richthofen’s essay on “Formosa and the 
Riukiu Islands.’” : 
In view of the accordant testimony of all these observers it 
would seem that the deep mediterraneans on the eastern border of 
Asia have presumably suffered deformation in modern geological 
time, and that long-enduring instability is by no means a probable 
characteristic of the Macclesfield bank. Indeed, as Suess? and 
others have suggested, the deepest seas are, like the highest 
mountains, very likely due to modern deformation. If one were 
asked to select a deep-sea area where rapid subsidence might be 
expected and where drowned atolls might therefore occur, and 
where long-continued stability appears improbable, the China Sea 
would seem to be about as good an example as any other. The 
Central Pacific has probably suffered much less deformation of 
recent date than the China Sea and its neighbors; and yet there 
are signs of subsidence even in the Central Pacific, as was pointed 
out in the accounts of Hawaii and Tahiti, previously given. 
Subsidence or stability in the Indian Ocean.—As to the great 
submarine banks of the Indian Ocean, they are so remote from 
continents and large islands of decipherable history that speculation 
regarding their origin is not narrowly limited. Little help toward 
reaching a sound conclusion concerning them is found in the pub- 
lished opinions about the small islands of the Indian Ocean. For 
example, C. W. Andrews (not to be confounded with E. C. Andrews, 
*B. Koto, “On the Geologic Structure of the Malayan Archipelago,” Jour. Coll. 
Sci. Tokyo, XI (1899), 83-110. 
2 F. V. Richthofen, ‘“‘Geomorph. Studien aus Ostasien: III, Die morphol. Stellung . 
von Formosa und den Riukiu Inseln,” Sitzungsber. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 1902. 
3 E. Suess, Das Antlitz der Erde, III (1909), 336. 
