40 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
felt to be a difficulty by many geologists, and showed that all 
types of coral reef could be accounted for without subsidence, 
and even in some cases along with elevation of land. 
Some of Murray’s friends were disappomted that his 
theory did not receive more serious and more immediate 
attention, and the then Duke of Argyll wrote a couple of 
articles with somewhat sensational titles—‘‘ A Great Lesson,” 
in the Nineteenth Century for September, 1887, and “ A Con- 
spiracy of Silence,” in Nature for November 17th, 1887—which 
gave rise to answers from some of the leading men of Science 
of the day, Huxley, Bonney and Judd. Murray went on his 
way undisturbed, collecting further evidence and publishing 
at intervals further papers dealing with one or another part 
of the large subject—such as his paper on the structure and 
origin of Coral Reefs in the Proceedings of the Royal Institution 
for 1888, his account of the Balfour Shoal in the Coral Sea (1897), 
a submarine elevation being built up by calcareous deposits, 
his “ Distribution of Pelagic Foraminifera at the surface and 
on the floor of the Ocean ”’ (1897), and a series of reports upon 
bottom deposits from the “ Blake” (1885) and many other 
expeditions. 
Later on (1896-98) Murray took a lively interest in the 
investigation, by a Committee of the British Association and 
the Royal Society, of a selected typical case, the atoll of 
Funafuti, one of the Ellice Group, in the South Pacific. A 
first expedition was sent out from this country under Professor 
Sollas, and then two others from Australia, under Professor 
Edgeworth David of Sydney, and borings were eventually 
obtained reaching an extreme depth of over, 1,100 feet. The 
core was brought home and subjected to detailed microscopic — 
examination, with the extraordinary result that the supporters 
of both rival theories find that it can be interpreted so as to 
support their views. The Funafuti boring cannot be said to 
have settled the matter. I believe the verdict at the present 
Se ee 
