'WEBS 1916 



THE 



AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE 



[FOURTH SERIES.] 



Art. YII. — Problems of the Pacific Islands;* by Regi- 

 nald A. Daly, Harvard University. With Plate III. 



Contents. 



Proposal for future research. 



Preliminary statement. 



Need of comprehensive exploration. 



Field considered. 



Duration and cost of the work. 



The problems. 

 Islands showing outcrops of continental rocks. 

 Volcanic islands. 



Petrography. 



Origin of the lavas. 



Nature of volcanic action. 

 Origin of limestone. 

 Coral islands. 



Subsidence theory of coral reefs. 



Glacial-control theory of coral reefs. 

 Eeview and conclusion. 



Proposal for Future Research, 



Preliminary statement. — The Greeks thought the Pillars of 

 Hercules to be the western end of the world. It has been the 

 glory of civilization to prove they were wrong. Unconsciously, 

 but all the more courageously, the Atlantic was spanned and 

 its conscious exploration, though still incomplete, has taken 

 the effort of four centuries and many nations. The wave of 

 adventure and manly curiosity early swept across the New 

 World, but only now is knowledge of the extent and value of 

 its continents for our race become fixed in grand outline. As 

 we look from the hills of Berkeley, still westward, through 



* An address given at a general meeting of the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, at San Francisco, August third, nineteen hun- 

 dred and fifteen. 



Am. Jour. Sci.— Fourth Series, Vol. XLI, No. 242. — February, 1916. 

 11 



