8 
“The formation of these characteristic African features, which 
either run parallel with, or are disposed at various angles to the 
coast, is remarkably simple. There is no reason to assume with 
Lieutenant R. C. Hart that they result from secular upheaval 
(page 186, Gold Coast Blue Book, London, 1881). The ‘ powerful 
artillery with which the ocean assails the bulwarks of the land, 
here heaps up a narrow strip of high sand bank, and the toils of 
the smaller streams are powerless to break through it, except when 
swollen by the rains. They maintain their level by receiving fresh 
water at the head, and by percolation through the beach, while 
most of them are connected with the sea.” . 
Next as to marine fishes. Of the shore-fish—term applied 
to the fish inhabitants of the immediate neighbourhood of 
land either actually raised above, or at least but little sub- 
merged below the surface of the water—of the equatorial 
zone, Dr. Giinther states that as regards the tropical Atlantic 
and Indo-Pacific’ fauna, the differences are far less numer- 
ous and important than between the fresh-water or terres- 
trial fauna of continental regions. The majority of the 
principal types are found in both, many of the species 
being even identical ; but the species are far more abundant 
in the Indo-Pacific than in the Atlantic, which is attributed 
to the greater extent of archipelagoes in the former. He 
continues— 
“But for the broken and varied character of the coasts of the 
West Indies, the shores of the tropical Atlantic would, by their 
general uniformity, afford but a limited variety of conditions to 
the development of specific and generic forms, whilst the deep 
inlets of the Indian Ocean, with the varying configuration of their 
coasts, and the different nature of their bottoms, its long penin- 
sulas and its archipelagoes, and the scattered islands of the 
tropical Pacific, render these parts of the globe the most perfect 
for the development of fish life.” 
“The boundaries of the tropical Atlantic extend zoologically 
a few degrees beyond the northern and southern tropics; but as 
