ELEVATIONS IN CORAL PACIFIC REGIONS. 341 



Enderbury's, in 3° 8' S., 174° 14' W., is eighteen feet 

 high. It has probably experienced some elevation. But the 

 height of the tides is such in the seas as to give the beach and 

 drift sands much greater height than they have in the Pauino- 

 tus. Birnie's Island is a small bank of coral, only six feet 

 above the sea, according to Wilkes (Narr., V. 4). 



Gardner's, HuWs, Sydney and Newmarket were visited 

 by the Wilkes Expedition. No satisfactory evidences of ele- 

 vation were observed on the first three. Newmarket is stated 

 by Captain Wilkes to have a height of twenty-five feet, which 

 would indicate an elevation of six or eight feet. 



h. Sandwich or Hawaian Islands. — Oahu affords decisive 

 proof of an elevation of twenty-five or thirty feet. There is an 

 impression at Honolulu, derived from a supposed increasing 

 height in the reef off the harbor, that the island is slowly ris- 

 ing. Upon this point we have nothing satisfactory. The pres- 

 ent height of the reef is not sufficiently above the level to which 

 it might be raised by the tides, to render it certain, from this 

 kind of evidence, that the suspected elevation is in progress. 



Kauai presents us with no evidence that the island, at the 

 present time, is at a higher level than when the coral reefs be- 

 gun ; or, at the most, no elevation is indicated beyond a foot or 

 two. The drift sand-rock of Koloa appears to be a proof of 

 elevation, from its resemblance to that of Northern Oahu ; but 

 if so, there must have been a subsidence since, as it now forms 

 a cliff on the shore that is gradually wearing away. 



Molokai, according to information from the Rev. Mr. An- 

 drews, has coral upon its declivities three hundred feet above 

 the sea. 



Mr. Andrews, in his communication, informed the author 

 that the coral occurs " upon the acclivity of the eastern or high- 

 est part of the island, over a surface of more than twenty or 



