Reviews — TJie Atoll of Funafuti. 219* 



minute crystals of quartz (rock-crystal) ; or, as was more usually 

 the case, it filled the cavity with a formless mass of the impure 

 chalcedony that we call flint. So was fashioned in silica a cast 

 of the inside of the sea-urchin test ; and later on, as the Chalk was 

 worn away by rain and rivers, and as its fossils thus came out on 

 the surface, then the relatively soft and soluble test was worn or 

 dissolved off. Therefore it is that many of these flint casts turn 

 up on the surface of the downs or in gravel-pits. In some cases,. 

 however, the test itself became impregnated with silica ; for the 

 limy substance, of which the test is made, is very porous. The 

 pores usually are filled in fossil specimens with crystalline carbonate 

 of lime ; but sometimes the silica got in first. When the flint was 

 once deposited in this way, so long as it remained in the Chalk there 

 was a tendency for further flint to be deposited round it, and so the 

 sea-urchins are occasionally found embedded in masses of flint. 

 Sometimes one finds only this surrounding flint with the impression 

 of the outer surface of the urchin." 



S, IE "V I S "V7- S. 



I. — Thk Atoll of Funafuti. Borings into a Coral Eeef and 

 THE Kesults. Being the Keport of the Coral Eeef Com- 

 mittee OF the Eoyal Society. 4to ; pp. xiv and 428, with 

 6 plates at end of text and folding chart of soundings, 69 cuts 

 in text, also with 19 plates in a separate portfolio. (Published 

 by the Eoyal Society, 1904.) 



rilHE much-discussed question as to the origin of Atolls has, of 

 X late years, been left a moot point, because the adherents to 

 this theory or to that have recognised that no- satisfactory con- 

 clusion can be come to without much further evidence, particularly 

 that which would probably be supplied by a deep boring into an 

 atoll. Such an undertaking, advocated by Charles Darwin, who 

 first made the question of the origin of atolls notorious, has at 

 last been accomplished by expeditions during three consecutive 

 years, sent out inider the control and at the expense of the Eoyal 

 Society and the Government of New South Wales, and aided by 

 private donations. 



The Eeport of the Coral Eeef Committee of the Eoyal Society 

 on these expeditions occupies the pages of the volume under con- 

 sideration. It has been edited by Professor T. G. Bonney, D.Sc, 

 F.E.S., who became responsible for passing the volume through the 

 press, and was also Chairman of the Coral Eeef Committee. In the 

 preface he gives a brief history of the various stages of the enter- 

 prise from its inception in 1893 to its completion. Its primary 

 object, as defined in the instructions to its first leader. Prof. Sollas, 

 was to investigate, by means of a boring, the depth and structure of 

 a coral-reef, and all other work undertaken in furtherance of natural 

 knowledge was to be considered as secondary to this object, whilst 



