526 AV. M. DAVIS SUBSIDENCE OF REEF-ENCIRCLED ISLANDS 



shorelines and unconformable contacts, the occurrence of both of which 

 may be clearly inferred from the detailed accounts of the islands and reefs. 

 One of the reviewers congratulated the author on having "demonstrated 

 that the old theory [of subsidence] fails and the new [Murray's theory 

 of outgrowth] succeeds"; the other commented on "the nervous reluc- 

 tance of many geologists to accept any explanation of the origin of coral 

 reefs unconnected with or adverse to the subsidence theory"; and urged 

 that "no matter how great may be the authority of any one individual 

 ... if a series of facts, such as those recorded in the work before us, 

 are plainly repugnant to the theory of subsidence, . . . it is the mani- 

 fest duty of geologists especially to examine such facts without prejudice 

 and to be ready to modify their views in accordance with the ever-advanc- 

 ing tide of scientific knowledge." The literature of the coral-reef prob- 

 lem is overcharged with uncritical and inconsequent discussions of this 

 kind; for example, the Duke of Argyle's "Great Lesson" in the "Nine- 

 teenth Century" for 1887. It was in reply to this article that Huxley 

 wrote an amusing comment in the same review, answering the charge that 

 a "conspiracy of silence" was suppressing Murray's and Guppy's views in 

 order to maintain the acceptance of Darwin's theory. 



Distribution of Submarine Banks 



replacement of atolls by submarine banks near the philippines 



The prevalence of unconformable fringing reefs on the embayed shores 

 of the Philippines, in association with the irregular development and 

 varying depths of submarine platforms, gives for Darwin's theory of 

 intermittent subsidence a confirmation that is as strong as it is unex- 

 pected; and still further confirmation for this theory is found when the 

 rarity of atolls in the region of the Philippines, already briefly alluded 

 to, is further considered. For if the rapid subsidence, which has resulted 

 in the submergence of previously formed fringing and barrier reefs and 

 the establishment of many narrow fringing reefs of a new generation in 

 that archipelago, extended to the adjacent seas from which no high 

 islands emerge, it would there result in the submergence and more or 

 less complete drowning of all preexistent atolls ; and this is precisely what 

 seems to have happened, for the number of submarine banks that appear 

 to be drowned atolls in the region west of the Philippines is extraordinary. 

 But atolls of good size, submerged or drowned by rapid subsidence, should 

 be distinguished from small atolls that have been extinguished by de- 

 crease of diameter during slow subsidence, as seems to have been the case 



