182 DISTRIBUTION OF CORAL-KEEFS. Ch. VI. 



On reviewing the above details it is impossible not 

 to be struck with the number of cases in which upraised 

 organic remains, apparently belonging to the recent 

 period, have been found on the shores now fringed by 

 reefs, and which are coloured red on our map. It may, 

 however, be thought that similar proofs of elevation 

 could be found on the coasts coloured blue, and which 

 we have good reason to believe have recently subsided ; 

 but such proofs cannot be found, with the few follow- 

 ing and doubtful exceptions. 



The entire area of the Eed Sea appears to have been 

 upraised within a late tertiary period ; nevertheless I 

 have been compelled, though on unsatisfactory evidence 

 (given in the Appendix), to class the reefs in the middle 

 part of the coast, not as fringing, but as barrier-reefs. 

 If, however, the statements should prove accurate re- 

 specting the less height of the tertiary beds in the 

 middle, compared with the northern and southern 

 districts, we might well suspect that the former had 

 subsided subsequently to a general elevation by which 

 the whole area had previously been upraised. Several 

 authors l have observed shells and corals high up on the 



1 Ellis, in his Polynesian Researches, was the first to call attention 

 to these remains (vol. i. p. 38), and the tradition of the natives concern- 

 ing them. See also Williams, Nar. of Miss. Enterprise, p. 21 ; also 

 Tyerman and Gr. Bennett, Jourri. of Voyage, vol. i. p. 213 ; also Mr. 

 Couthouy's Remarks, p. 51 ; but his principal fact, namely, that there 

 is a mass of upraised coral on the narrow peninsula of Tiarubu, is from 

 hearsay evidence ; also Mr. Stutchbury, "West of England Journ. No. 1, 

 p. 54. There is a passage in Von Zach, Corres. Astronom. vol. x. 

 p. 266, inferring an uprising at Tahiti, from a footpath now used, which 

 was formerly impassable ; but I particularly enquired from several 

 native chiefs, whether they knew of any change of this kind, and they 

 were unanimous in giving me an answer in the negative. 



