Agassiz — Islands and Coral Beefs of the Fiji Group. 119 



What the age of the elevated reef of the Fiji is, I am 

 unable to state ; its aspect and position show it to be of con- 

 siderable age, probably antecedent to the present period. In 

 many ways it resembles some of the late Tertiary elevated 

 limestones which I have seen on the northern and southern 

 coasts of Cuba. The great thickness which the elevated coral 

 reefs attain in this group, at least 800 feet, also shows that 

 they may have been deposited originally during a period of 

 subsidence, but not a period of subsidence taking place in our 

 epoch or which could have had any effect in shaping the 

 outline of the islands of the Fiji group and their accom- 

 panying reefs. 



Whether the elevation of the Fiji group corresponds in time 

 with that of northern Queensland, I am unable to state. I can 

 only suggest that it is not improbable that the elevation of 

 Queensland and of the Pacific islands to the east, New Cale- 

 donia, the Loyalty Islands, the Solomon, New Hebrides includ- 

 ing Fiji and Samoa, may have been synchronous. It may be 

 that these islands have, like northern Queensland, been subject 

 to an immense erosion and denudation which have reduced 

 them to their present proportions. 



The elevation may have been preceded, as in Queensland, in 

 still earlier geological times by a great period of depression, dur- 

 ing which the thick beds of coral reef limestone may have been 

 formed. How far east this elevation extended is not known ; 

 its area probably included the Cook islands and Tahiti, and 

 judging from some photographs I should feel inclined to con- 

 sider atolls of the Paumotus as having been formed by causes 

 similar to those which shaped those of the Fijis. 



The evidence thus far collected on the Fijis shows the futil- 

 ity of boring in this group. Any result obtained would 

 merely at some point indicate the thickness of a former ele- 

 vated reef ; a reef formed in a period preceding our own. 

 We should obtain information which could have no bearing on 

 the main question, if I am correct in the interpretation of what 

 I have observed, information in fact which may be obtained as 

 one steams along without the trouble or cost of boring. Should 

 I be correct, it would be natural to look upon the results of 

 the boring at Funafuti much in the same light and to assume 

 that the island, as well as others in the Ellice group, is also in 

 this area of elevation and that the great thickness of coral 

 obtained was reached by boring in the base of an ancient reef. 

 So that the results obtained by Professor David from the bor- 

 ing at Funafuti do not assist us in any way in corroborating 

 the theory of subsidence as essential to the formation of atolls. 



However that may be, it only emphasizes what has been said 

 so often, that there is no general theory of the formation of 



