Geology. 321 



1897 has performed the administrative work of Geology, to give 

 more attention to the division of Areal and Stratigraphic Geology 

 of which he has charge. 



2. The Fauna and Geography of the Maldive and Laccadive 

 Archipelagoes ; edited by J. Stanley Gardiner. Vol. i, part i, 

 with plates i-v, and text illustrations 1-23, pp. 1-118. Cam- 

 bridge, 1901.— This work, of which the first part is now pub- 

 lished, gives an account of the investigations carried on by an 

 expedition, headed by Mr, Gardiner, in 1899 and 1900. The 

 special region studied was that of the Maldive Archipelago of 

 Coral Islands, but a careful study was also made of the atoll of 

 Minikoi, which forms the southernmost of the Laccadives. These 

 two Archipelagoes lie to the south-southwest of the Peninsula of 

 British India, although separated from it by a depth of 1,000 to 

 1,500 fathoms. The India Peninsula itself has practically no 

 coral reefs, though the southern part towards Ceylon partakes of 

 the same formation as the northern portion of that island. The 

 part of the work now published contains an account of the atoll 

 of Minikoi, from which some quotations are given below, and 

 besides papers on the Hymenoptera by P. Cameron, on the Land 

 Crustaceans by L. Borradaile, and the Nemerteans by R. C. 

 Punnett. 



" The surface of Minikoi island is sharply divided into two 

 areas, an outer, covered on the surface with large loose coral or 

 rock masses, and an inner with sand." In the outer area, 

 " Madrepora, Pocillopora and other branching corals are found 

 with their steins still unbroken while massive species have their 

 calicles and septa even yet entire, absolutely negativing the pos- 

 sibility of a beach origin for the rocky area?'' At the base of 

 the outer beach is a conglomerate which seems " to have consti- 

 tuted part of the original reef (which by subsequent growth 

 fashioned the atoll of Minikoi)" and which " may be considered to 

 prove conclusively an elevation of the atoll," " of at least 24 feet." 

 An examination of all the facts indicate " that the atoll existed as 

 such when the change of level took place," that it has "been sta- 

 tionary for a considerable period of time." " Supposing the land 

 in the present atoll to be entirely swept away, the condition at 

 the present day cannot be far different from that of the atoll 

 before the change of level, allowing for its then smaller size." 



3. The formation of the Maldives. — Mr. J. Stanley Gardiner 

 closes an interesting article on the results of his expedition to 

 the Maldive archipelago (Geographical Journal, March, 1902, 

 pp. 277-296) with the following remarks on the origin of the 

 coral atolls :* "It [the expedition] has shown that the banks of 

 the Maldives arise on a common plateau at a depth of about 190 

 fathoms. The land has been undoubtedly, by some means or 

 other, raised above the sea, and is now everywhere on the larger 

 banks being washed away. The atoll-reefs are growing out- 



* See the preceding notice, also the paper by Professor Agassiz, pp. 297- 

 308, of this number. 



