178 DISTRIBUTION OF CORAL-REEFS. Ch. VI. 



tive rocks, as coated to a considerable height with coral. 

 Some small islets eastward of Timor are said in Kolff's Voyage 1 

 to resemble small coral islets -upraised some feet above the sea. 

 Dr. Macolmson informs me that Dr. Hardie found in Java an 

 extensive formation, containing an abundance of shells, of 

 which the greater part appear to be of existing species. Dr. 

 Jack 2 has described some upraised shells and corals, apparently- 

 recent, on Pulo Nias off Sumatra ; and Marsden relates in his 

 history of this great island, that the names of many promon- 

 tories show that they were originally islands. On part of the 

 west coast of Borneo and at the Sooloo Islands, the form of the 

 land, the nature of the soil, and the water- washed rocks, 

 present appearances 3 (although it is doubtful whether such 

 vague evidence is worthy of mention) of having recently been 

 covered by the sea ; and the inhabitants of the Sooloo Islands 

 believe that this has been the case. Mr. Cuming, who has 

 lately investigated with so much success the mollusca of the 

 Phillippines, found near Cabagan, in Luzon, about 50 feet 

 above the level of the E. Cagayan and 70 miles from its 

 mouth, a large bed of fossil shells : these, as he informs me, 

 are certainly of the same species with those now existing on 

 the shores of the neighbouring islands. From the accounts 

 given by Captain Basil Hall and Captain Beechey 4 of the lines 



1 Translated by Windsor Earl, chaps, vi. and vii. 



2 G-eolog. Transact. 2nd series, vol. i. p. 403. On the Peninsula of 

 Malacca, in front of Penang, 5° 30' N., Dr. Ward collected some shells 

 which Dr. Malcolmson informs me, although not compared with exist- 

 ing species, had a recent appearance. Dr. ^Ward describes in this 

 neighbourhood (Trans. Asiat. Soc. vol. xviii., part 2, p. 166) a single 

 water- worn rock, with a conglomerate of sea-shells at its base, situated 

 six miles inland, which, according to the traditions of the natives, was 

 once surrounded by the sea. Captain Low has also described (ibid. Part i 

 p. 131) mounds of shells lying two miles inland on this line of coast. 



3 Notices of the East Indian Arch., Singapore, 1828, [p. 6, and 

 Append, p. 43. 



4 Captain B. Hall, Voyage to Loo Choo, Append, pp. xxi. and xxv. 

 Captain Beechey's Voyage, p. 496. 





