256 Professor R. A. Daly— 



coast belt shows recent " uplift " to the extent of " about 10 to 

 20 feet." An estuarine deposit at Largs, with surface at 15 feet 

 above high-water mark, has yielded more than 30 species of shells 

 of animals now living in the adjacent water. Similar discoveries 

 on the coast of Queensland are reported by Jack and Etheridge, 

 the emerged beaches and plains (locally with recent fossils) having 

 heights of from 10 feet to 20 feet above " sea-level ".' 



Cadell notes that the " raised beaches " of Western Australia 

 are from 10 to 15 feet above sea-level. One of these is from 12 to 

 18 miles wide, and extends 25 miles inland. The beaches contain 

 recent marine shells.^ 



Pacific Islands. — Many local, recent, negative shifts of sea-level 

 have been recorded in the Pacific archipelagoes, where synthetic 

 studies are needed in so many lines. A few of the records will suffice 

 to raise the question whether the last shift of level in Samoa affected 

 the whole Pacific basin. After his reconnaissance of the Paumotus, 

 Agassiz wrote : " Nearly all the islands have been elevated a very 

 moderate height and probably to about the same height." He gives 

 the figure for Niau as "no greater than 20 feet " and for Eangiroa 

 as 15 to 16 feet.-' At Funafuti of the EUice group, David and Sweet 

 found the recent negative shift of level to be " at least 6 feet and 

 almost certainly 16 feet ". In another passage they write : " There 

 must have been a land-elevation or a sea-sinking of at least 9 to 

 10 feet." ^ For the New Hebrides Mawson reports sea terraces, 

 benches, and " raised " shore debris or coral in Santo, Efate, Epi, 

 Malekula, Pakea, and Hui Islands, at heights of from 5 to 15 feet."'^ 

 In his Murray Island report Mayor writes : "In common with other 

 islands of the Torres Straits region, whether volcanic, calcareous, 

 or continental in character, the Murray Islands exhibit a recently 

 emerged shore platform about 3 feet above the present high-tide 

 level."'' On Bird Island of the Hawaiian Chain, Elschner found 

 a " level terrace " a few feet above sea-level.^ 



As shown in Samoa and in the Bahamas, the observed heights 

 of wave-cut benches on oceanic islands are likely to be 6 to 12 or 

 more feet below the high-tide level ruling at the time of their cutting. 

 " Raised " coral, too, is liable to give too small a value for a negative 



^ E. C. Andrews, New South Wales Handbook, Brit. Assoc. Adv. Science, 

 1914, pp. 525, 532 ; C. A. Siissmilch, Introduction to the Geology of New South 

 Wales, Sydne3^ 1911, p. 154; R. L. Jack and R. Etheridge, Geology and 

 Palceonfology of Queensland and New Guinea, London, 1892, pp. 614 ff. 



- H. M. Cadell, Trans. Edinburgh Geol. Soc, vol. vii, 1897, p. 179. 



^ A. Agassiz, Memoirs, Museum Compar. Zoology, Cambridge, Mass., 

 vol. xxviii^ 1903, p. 20. 



■» T. W. E David and G. Sweet, The Atoll of Funafuti, London, 1904, pp. 68, 

 84, 85. 



= D. Mawson, Proc. Linn. Soc. New South Wales, 1905, pt. iii, pp. 400 ff. 



^ A. G. Mayor, Papers from the Department of Marine Biology, Carnegie 

 Institution of Washington, vol. ix, 1918, p. 9. 



^ C. Elschner, " The Leeward Islands of the Hawaiian Group " : reprint from 

 the Sunday Advertiser, Honolulu; 1915, p. 9. 



