THE FIJIS 



343 



we are still as far as ever from having a general 

 theory of the formation of coral reefs" 



The Funafuti boring was continued the following year 

 to a depth of 1114 feet, when the work was stopped, 

 as the party had exhausted their supply of diamonds. 

 Murray, from his examination of the bore, believes that 

 the drill " passed through a portion of the talus pro- 

 duced by the fragments torn from the growing face of 

 the reef, and on which it had proceeded seawards." 



Agassiz, on the other hand, in a letter to Murray in 

 1907, says of the Funafuti bore : " All I have seen 

 inclines me to think that the core has in part passed 

 through Tertiary limestones, and in part a talus of 

 modern material." 



Funafuti 1 



AGASSIZ 



A being 50-70 fathorna 



MURRAY 



In another letter to Murray, written after the publi- 

 cation of the Funafuti Report, he says : — 



" I have been looking over again the Funafuti book. 

 I do not see that the examination of the corals found 

 has been a comparative one and a direct one with recent 

 corals, and I defy any one to make such a comparison 



1 There is, in the coral room at the Museum in Cambridge, a beautiful 

 model of Funafuti, made by Mr. G. C. Curtis, from data supplied by the 

 Royal Society Report, and Agassiz's notes. 



