A DROWNED CONTINENT 
A FEw years ago deep boring operations were undertaken 
in the island of Funafuti, in the Ellice group of Polynesia, | 
with the primary object of ascertaining the depth to which 
coral-rock, or limestone of coral origin, extends. As it was 
found that such coral-made material extended to depths 
far below the level at which living coral can exist, evidence 
was afforded that the island had subsided. And as sub- 
sidence was thus proved to have taken place in a single 
island selected almost at random, the conclusion could 
hardly be resisted that the greater part, if not the whole, 
of Polynesia must likewise be a subsiding area, or, in other 
words, the remnants of a drowned continent, some of the 
higher lands of which are indicated by the atolls and other 
islands of the Coral Sea. This raises the whole question as 
to the permanence or otherwise of the great oceanic basins 
and continental areas of the globe: a subject, it need 
scarcely be said, having not only an intense interest of its 
own, but also one of the utmost importance in regard to 
many puzzling problems connected with the present and 
past geographical distribution of terrestrial animals and 
plants on the surface of the globe. 
Although it might well have been thought that opinion 
in scientific matters would be unlikely to veer suddenly 
round, and after tending strongly in one direction incline 
with equal force in the one immediately opposite, yet 
117 
