1 66 CORAL-REEFS. 



perfectly preserved, and beds of recent shells and corals, at the 

 islands of .Maui, Morokai, Oahu, and Tauai (or Kauai) in this 

 group. Mr. Pierce, an intelligent resident at Oahu, is con- 

 vinced, from changes which have taken place within his 

 memory, during the last sixteen years, "that the elevation is at 

 present going forward at a very perceptible rate." The natives 

 at Kauai state that the land is there gaining rapidly on the sea, 

 and Mr. Couthouy has no doubt, from the nature of the strata, 

 that this has been effected by an elevation of the land. 



In the southern part of the Low Archipelago, Elizabeth 

 Island is described by Capt. Beechey, 1 as being quite flat, and 

 about eighty feet in height ; it is entirely composed of dead 

 corals, forming a honeycombed, but compact rock. In cases 

 like this, of an island having exactly the appearance, which the 

 elevation of any one of the smaller surrounding atolls with a 

 shallow lagoon would present, one is led to conclude (with little 

 better reason, however, than the improbability of such small 

 and low fabrics lasting, for an immense period, exposed to the 

 many destroying agents of nature), that the elevation has taken 

 place at an epoch not geologically remote. When merely the 

 surface of an island of ordinary formation is strewed with marine 

 bodies, and that continuously, or nearly so, from the beach 

 to a certain height, and not above that height, it is exceedingly 

 improbable that such organic remains, although they may not 

 have been specially examined, should belong to any ancient 

 period. It is necessary to bear these remarks in mind, in 

 considering the evidence of the elevatory movements in the 

 Pacific and Indian Oceans, as it does not often rest on specific 

 determinations, and therefore should be received with caution. 

 Six of the Cook and Austral Islands (S.W. of the Society 

 group) are fringed ; of these, five were described to me by the 

 Rev. J. Williams, as formed of coral-rock, associated with some 

 basalt in Mangaia), and the sixth as lofty and basaltic. 

 Mangaia is nearly three hundred feet high, with a level summit ; 

 and according to Mr. S. Wilson 2 it is an upraised reef ; " and 



1 Beechey's Voyage in the Facific y p. 46, 4to ed. 



2 Couthouy's Remarks, p. 34. 



