CORAL REEFS AND SUBMARINE BANKS 4C3 
the facts are not more fully ascertained, the rarity of deep banks is, 
in my view, more unfavorable to Darwin’s theory than any other 
objection that has been urged against it. 
It may be noted that certain small sea-level reefs in Fiji appear 
to have been recently submerged by subsidence to a depth of 100 
fathoms or more, after a previous appearance at sea-level and before 
their present emergence by elevation; they stand near the lofty atoll 
of Vatu Vara, which is now 1,030 feet above sea-level; at an earlier 
time, when the presumable foundation of Vatu Vara may have 
stood about as high as now so that a reef could begin to grow upon it, 
the small reefs also may have had their heads at sea-level; between 
then and now, when the reef of Vatu Vara was completing its 
upward growth upon its supposedly subsiding foundation, the 
small reefs must have been deeply submerged, because their small 
size prevented their continued upgrowth; I have suggested that 
they might then be called ‘‘extinguished,” and that now, since they 
have been brought to the surface again by uplift, they might be 
called ‘‘resurgent.’”’ It may be further noted that several lines 
of evidence, of which the latest one to be announced is found in 
an article by Foye,’ indicate a recent eastward tilting in the eastern 
part of Fiji, and that some small submerged banks lie beyond the 
easternmost islands, as if the tilting in their district were too great 
to be overcome by upgrowth. Close-spaced soundings in that 
region would be of special interest. A tilting is also indicated to the 
northwest of Viti Levu, the largest Fiji island, as has been noted; 
there also additional soundings are desirable. 
Extra-tropical submarine banks.—Ii prolonged crustal stability 
characterizes the intertropical oceanic areas in which volcanic 
foundations are crowned with atolls, it should also characterize 
extra-tropical oceanic areas where volcanic foundations are not 
reef crowned. Preglacial volcanic islands in these areas as well as 
atolls on the border of the coral zone, where the reefs must surely 
have been killed, should therefore be.more or less completely 
reduced to submarine platforms of the same depth as the platforms 
that are supposed to underlie the submarine banks of the coral seas. 
t “Extinguished and Resurgent Reefs,” Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., II (1916), 466-71. 
2 “The Geology of the Lau Islands [Fiji], Amer. Jour. Sci., XLII (1917), 343-50. 
