136 E. C. Andrews — Coral R$efs in the Fiji Islands. 



had grown out from the islands, giving them a terraced appear- 

 ance after elevation. 



After the elevation of the limestones and ash beds, it was 

 considered that a volcanic outburst had taken place, causing 

 the intrusion by igneous rocks, in part, of the raised limestones 

 and ash beds. 



In the following year, 1899, while the writer was conducting 

 a geological survey in New England, New South' Wales, he 

 found himself at a loss to account for the existence of certain 

 common but striking topographical features in that region. 

 During that year, also, the works of certain American physi- 

 ographers were perused carefully by him for the first time. 

 Having grasped the main principles of modern physiography 

 by such study, an excursion was made with Mr. C. Hedley, in 

 1901, to the Great Barrier Reef of North Queensland, and it 

 became apparent at once that the origin of this Great Barrier 

 Reef would be best interpreted by a study of the associated 

 land forms, and two essays were published to set forth the 

 results of these observations* made both in New England and 

 in Northern Queensland. 



In these regions it was found that a peneplain had been 

 uplifted, in stages, to great heights above sea level ; that pro- 

 found gorges had been excavated therein by running streams, 

 and that the coastal region had been broadly degraded while 

 gorges had been cut by the inner, or head ward, portions of 

 the streams ; that at a late stage in this degrading process, 

 the coastal region had been submerged for hundreds of feet, 

 the sea thus trespassing far across the coastal lowlands so as to 

 convert a strip of these coastal lowlands into a portion of the 

 continental shelf, dotted with hilly or mountainous islands. 

 Inasmuch as the area now occupied at present by the Great 

 Barrier itself, and the associated fringing reefs, around the 

 islands, presumably participated in the movement of submer- 

 gence, the present Barrier Beef, and the associated reefs, indi- 

 ated a growth upwards of ' coral-reef ' organisms, both during 

 and after submergence. Signs of a more recent, but slight, 

 emergence were found in the form of masses, in situ, of the 

 Great Barrier Beef, lying a few feet above high-water mark, 

 in flats of alluvium also occurring from five to twenty feet 

 above high-water mark and showing recent stream dissection, 

 as also in wave-cut platforms in granites and contorted sedi- 

 ments alike occurring a few feet above high-water mark. 



The idea was thus strongly suggested that although the ele- 

 vation of a peneplain to heights, in places, exceeding 4,500 



* E. C. Andrews, Notes on the general geology of the Queensland Coast, 

 Proc. Linn. Soc, N. S. Wales, 1902, pp. 146-185. 



Id. The Tertiary History of New England, N. S. Wales, Records Geol. 

 Survey, N. S. Wales, 1903, pp. 140-216, plates XXXI to XLI. 



