840 
That the coralline alez form extensive 
banks and reefs in the Dutch East Indies 
also is indicated by the following quotation 
from Mme. A. Weber-van Bosse’s report 
on “‘The Corallinacee of the Siboga Ex- 
pedition’’ :§ 
Near the coast of Haingsisi, an island near the 
S. W. point of Timor, the Siboga anchored twice 
. ..; the second time good luck favoured us, it was 
springtide, the water sank very low and we could 
observe that the whole reef . . . consisted chiefly 
of Lithothamnion erubescens f. Haingsisiana. It 
was remarkable that the branching knolls remained 
quite dry during several hours of the day, exposed 
to the glare of the tropical sun, and that this 
seemed not to injure them. ... This Lithotham- 
nion-bank struck me, because it is such a unique 
sight to see the ground, as far as the eye can 
reach, covered by the pretty beautifully pink- 
coloured knolls, which are heaped up so close to- 
gether that, while walking, one crushes them con- 
tinually,, making a peculiar noise as of broken 
china. We encountered, however, other and per- 
haps more instructive Lithothamnion banks during 
our voyage. 
Bermuda, as is generally known, was 
commonly considered a ‘‘true coral’’ is- 
land until the studies of Alexander Agas- 
siz® and of Henry B. Bigelow? indicated 
that the corals have played a rather minor 
part in its upbuilding. Dr. Bigelow be- 
‘lieves (loc. cit., p. 582) that ‘‘alew prob- 
ably form the greatest mass’’ of what he 
terms the ‘‘shell sands’’ of Bermuda, and 
it is of interest to note that Sir John 
Murray in reporting the results of the 
Challenger Expedition intimates that the 
calcareous seaweeds and their broken down 
fragments were the dominating elements 
in three out of four analyzed samples of so- 
ealled ‘‘coral’’ sand or mud from Ber- 
8 <«Siboga-Expeditie,’’ Monographe LXI., p. 4, 
1904. Interesting photographs of the Lithotham- 
nion bank are here published. 
® Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. Harvard Coll., Vol. 26, 
pp. 205-281, 1895. 
1 Proc. Am. Acad. Arts and Sci., Vol. 40, pp. 
557-592, 744, 1905. 
SCIENCE 
[N.S. Von. XXXV. No. 909 
muda. Dr. Bigelow, in connection with his 
eritical studies of ‘‘The Shoal-water De- 
posits of the Bermuda Banks,’’ made a 
series of dredgings on the Challenger 
Bank, nine miles or more from Bermuda. 
His dredge brought up chiefly ‘‘caleareous 
pebbles,’’ which on examination proved to 
be formed by a species of Lithothamnion. 
These were growing at a depth of from 
30-50 fathoms, a depth too great for most 
of the corals. In summing up the results 
of these studies, Dr. Bigelow writes :1? 
The dredgings from the Challenger Bank add to 
the evidence already accumulated to prove the 
great importance of the nullipores as reef builders. 
. . . This process taking place over the Challenger 
Bank, where there is no direct evidence of either 
elevation or subsidence, has raised it to within 
some thirty to fifty fathoms of the surface of the 
sea, a depth where a few corals already flourish. 
If we imagine this process as continuing until the 
bank rises to within about twenty fathoms of the 
surface, we should then have excellent conditions 
for the formation of a coral reef. Of course in 
such upbuilding the nullipores constitute only a 
part, though a most important one, of the whole 
growth. 
It would appear from this observation of 
Dr. Bigelow’s and from various other ree- 
ords that the lime-secreting seaweeds 
flourish and are effective reef-builders in 
ereater depths than is the case with the 
corals. Dr. Vaughan, in the paper under 
discussion, quotes Professor J. Stanley 
Gardiner as authority for the statement 
that the ‘‘nullipores extend to a depth of 
35 fathoms’’ in the Maldives, but Mr. A. 
E. Finckh in his dredging operations about 
Funafuti frequently found them in 
“«depths of over 100 fathoms in situ’’? and 
also found Halimeda alive down to 45 
fathoms. From Alexander Agassiz’s de- 
scription of the Pourtalés Plateau off the 
southern coast of Florida, one seems justi- 
fied in inferring that he found incrusting 
1 Loc. cit., pp. 589, 590. 
2<¢¢The Atoll of Funafuti,’’ p. 134. 
