Sage ee 
Geology and Natural History. 317 
I believe still that I was right in considering the ocean bottom in 
i ave undergone a general subsidence greater than 
that to the south, southwest and west, where the atolls and barrier 
reefs are large. 
Again, if submarine eruptions are destructive, narrow reefs may 
exist about volcanic islands that are undergoing a subsidence. 
Making a reef is slow work; and, judging from the eruptions of 
the present century about Hawaii, reefs would have had a poor 
chance in the past to form, except along the coasts that were out 
of reach of the submarine action. 
ith so many causes for the existence of narrow or fringing 
reefs, or of small patches of corals, it is assuredly unsafe to make 
them, without other corroborating testimony, evidence of a sta- 
tionary condition of a region, or of an elevating movement rather 
than a subsiding. 
(iV.) The next point in the Preface is stated as follows: 
‘Profesor Dana further believes that many of the lagoon 
f 
slightly elevated.” And, in the body of the work, where the sub- 
e catalogue of such elevations which ive—after a dozen 
pages devoted to a discussion of the evidence respecting each—is 
as 1ollows: 
Paumotu Archipelago, --.--- Honden, 2 or 3 
- RE Se a Cleemont Tonnerre, 2. SS -- ae ee 2or3 
. Be ae Nairsa or Dean’s, 6 
- We kame Elizabe 80 
vier cole aoe tS: Metia or Aurora, 250 
chee ee ee oe Ducie’s, - 1 or 2? 
Tahitian Group, .....-...--. Tahiti, 
“ OR oe oe ie eet labola, ge eee ee Se ; 
Hervey and R Atiu, — 12 
eo — Wank icc aa ea uaa somewhat elevated 
= we ‘“ Miter, 00 aes “ “% 
“ ii3 “cs “ angaia, paUB a eae 300 
“i “ “ “ Rurutu, 2 as 150 
is “ “ fot Tele 5 605s 
Tongan Grou ac Dice 300? 
: EES u, 50 to 60 
: i cawnnees Namuka and the Hapaii, --..------- 25 
Li3 é : me 100 
Island, 100 
Samoan or Navigator Islands, --.-- 0 
North of Samoa, _.__..._.- Swain’s, 2or3 
Og 6 , or Bowditch, .....-..----- 
OM @ os cc, Oxbate, or Dube of York's, 2.4.1. 2or3 
