AUSTRALIA 



218 



cal in form. The Tertiary fold lines of Australia and South America 

 ma}^ be seen in hgure 7. In these foldings the main body of Australia 

 appears to have moved toward the northeast, but the movement was rela- 

 tively feeble. All of its peripheral ranges are submerged in the ocean 

 and are now represented only by chains of islands. New Guinea, New 

 Zealand, and New Caledonia are islands of large size, but most of the 

 islands are small. Between Australia and the equator there are three or 

 four distinct lines trending mostly southeast to northwest. These lines 

 are nearly straight, excepting that toward the northwest they turn to 

 courses due west. Two or three of these lines run through New Guinea, 

 one apparently extending southeast through New Caledonia. This line 

 does not appear to connect with New Zealand. Another strong line runs 

 through the Admiralty Islands, through New Mecklenburg, the Solomon 

 Islands, New Hebrides, and eastern Loyalty Islands. 



The alignment of the smaller islands is not clear in some parts, but 

 one quite distinct line appears to begin north of the equator in the Egoi 

 Islands of the western Caroline group, and, after running eastward 1,500 

 miles> sweeps in a great curve to the south through the Gilbert and Ellice 

 Islands to the Fiji group, where it meets another line from the east. The 

 greater size and height of the islands of the Fiji group as compared with 

 those of the lines that enter it from the north and east reminds one of the 

 island arcs of eastern Asia, where the points of intersection of the arcs 

 are always higher than the arcs themselves, as in Kamchatka, Hokaido, 

 and Formosa. Another line less clearly defined begins in the Marshall 

 Islands, and appears to curve gradually around through New Zealand, 

 the Phoenix, Tokelau, Samoan, Friendly, and Kermadec Islands. North 

 of New Zealand there appears to be a line of narrow ocean deeps close 

 along the east side of a submarine escarpment running from Bast Cape, 

 New Zealand, to the Friendly Islands. This escarpment indicates fold- 

 ing from the west on the line of New Zealand produced, and it shows 

 clearly that it is the Marshall-Samoa-Friendly line and not the Caroline- 

 Gilbert-Fiji line which connects toward the south with New Zealand. 

 New Zealand itself seems to owe its pronounced development to the junc- 

 tion of important lines, at least one to the northwest from the north 

 island and one to the southeast from the south island. 



The Hawaiian Islands, though so far away, appear to have a distinct 

 affinity for the Australian lines southwest of them, and they appear to be 

 just as distinctly independent of Asia and the Americas. The Washing- 

 ton-Christmas line lies farther south, with the same trend. The Samao- 

 Society and Fiji-Cook- Austral lines run east-southeast, while the Tau- 

 motu and the Marquesas, on lines still farther east, trend to the 



