CORAL-REEFS. 173 



It is very remarkable on reviewing these details, to 

 observe in how many instances fringing-reefs round the 

 shores, have coincided with the existence on the land of 

 upraised organic remains, which seem, from evidence more 

 or less satisfactory, to belong to a late tertiary period. It 

 may, however, be objected, that similar proofs of elevation, 

 perhaps, occur on the coasts coloured blue in our map : 

 but this certainly is not the case with the few following and 

 doubtful exceptions. 



The entire area of the Red Sea appears to have been 

 upraised within a modern period ; nevertheless I have been 

 compelled (though on unsatisfactory evidence, as given in 

 the Appendix) to class the reefs in the middle part, as 

 barrier-reefs ; should, however, the statements prove accu- 

 rate of the less height of the tertiary bed in this middle 

 part, compared with the northern and southern districts, we 

 might well suspect that it had subsided subsequently to the 

 general elevation by which the whole area has been upraised. 

 Several authors 1 have stated that they have observed shells 



Beche, Geol. Man., p. 142. — Cuba, Taylor, in Lond. and E din. Mag., 

 vol. xi. p. 17. Dr. Daubeny also, at a meeting of the Geolog. Soc, 

 orally described some very modern beds lying on the N.W. parts of 

 Cuba. I might have added many other less important references. 



1 Ellis, in his Polynesian Researches, was the first to call attention to 

 these remains (vol. i. p. 38), and the tradition of the natives concern- 

 ing them. See also Williams, Nar. of Miss. Enterprise, p. 21 ; also 

 Tyerman and G. Bennett, Journ. of Voyage, vol. i. p. 213; also Mr. 

 Couthouy's Remarks, p. 51 ; but this principal fact, namely, that there 

 is a mass of upraised coral on the narrow peninsula of Tiarubu, is from 

 hearsay evidence; also Mr. Stutchbury, West of England Journ., No. 1, 

 p. 54. There is a passage in Von Zach, Corres. Astronom., vol. x. 

 p. 266, inferring an uprising at Tahiti, from a footpath now used, 

 which was formerly impassable ; but I particularly inquired from 

 several native chiefs, whether they knew of any change of this kind, 

 and they were unanimous in giving me an answer in the negative, 



