396 



FUNAFUTI: THF, STORY OF A CORAL ATOLL. 



DARWIN 



?Al_ FRACMCNTS 



obtaining specimens of the material of which it is composed, down to a 

 depth considerably greater than that at which corals arc supposed to 

 build. How would this illustrate the question? Allow me to employ 

 a homely illustration : buyers of cheese are not, I presume, naturally 

 more suspicious than other persons engaged in trade, but they are 

 unwilling to trust too much to mere outward appearance ; they 

 are not inclined to adopt the argument which commended itself to 

 Chamisso in a parallel case, that because there is good cheese on the 

 surface it must be good cheese all through ; consequently, by means of 

 a boring instrument, called a scoop, they make a hole through the 

 cheese and bring out a core or cylindrical rod, in which the several 

 strata of the material, if there be more than one, are displayed in their 

 true thickness and natural position. The atoll is our cheese, which we 

 propose to sample with a complicated kind of scoop called a diamond 

 drill. This should provide us with a core in which the various layers 

 of the coral reef should be faithfully represented. Should Darwin's 



theory prove correct, the core will 

 contain the remains of reef-building 

 corals as far down as the reef ex- 

 tends; if, on the other hand, Sir 

 John Murray's explanation makes a 

 nearer approach to the truth, layers 

 of chalky ooze will be present at 

 depths greater than that of the limit 

 of coral growth (tig. 5). 



No one who has any notion of the 

 extraordinary thoroughness with 

 which Darwin attacked this as every 

 other problem that he investigated, 

 will be at all surprised to learn that 

 the same solution had already occurred to him, and in a letter to A. 

 Agassiz (May 5, 1881) he sighs for " some doubly rich millionaire, who 

 would take it into his head to have borings made in some of the Pacific 

 and Indian atolls, and bring home cores for slicing from a depth of 500 

 or GOO feet." As the wished-for millionaire did not appear to be forth- 

 coming, it appeared to me that the boring might be achieved in another 

 way. by a method very familiar to this association — I allude, of course, 

 to a "committee." On approaching Professor Bonney with a sugges- 

 tion to this effect he warmly entertained the proposal, and iu 1891 a 

 strong committee, including the most distinguished supporters and 

 opponents of Darwin's theory, was formed, having for its object the 

 investigation of an atoll by boring and other means. 



Through the kind offices of Professor Stuart, of Sydney, we obtained 

 from the government of New South Wales the offer of the free loan of 

 a diamond drill. Our next step was to select an island for investiga- 

 tion. This was rendered an easy task through the invaluable assistance 



Peer 



Building 



Fif 



