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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 
coral reefs of Pleistocene Age have been recorded from 
New Caledonia itself. 
The Loyalty Islands, inclusive of Walpole Island, form a 
subparallel series lying to the east of the mainland being 
separated therefrom by asea trough. Davis has shown 
that the islands Mare, Lifu, and Uvea, are composed of 
coral limescone of Pleistocene Age and that one at least 
shows the evidence of pronounced tilting. 
Walpole Island shows five lines’ of marine erosion on its 
cliffs of elevated coral. This suggests then that New 
Caledonia has been in a condition of stable equilibrium 
during the greater part of the Pleistocene Period and that 
a great barrier reef has grown on the platform as in the 
case of the still more important barrier reef of Hastern 
Australia or that it has grown on a submarine coast of 
undulating type. 
The Loyalties, together with Walpole Island, appear to 
have formed unstable units as compared with the main 
western block of New Caledonia and they show the evid- 
ence of warping, the islands forming the crest of a land 
wave while the corresponding troughs lie east and west of 
this island-dotted crest. 
ag The Greater Solomons.—These consist of a great. 
double line of volcanic islands. The Kainozoic beds of 
*“soapstone”’ lie unconformably upon them.? These in turn 
have been folded or warped and upon their eroded surfaces 
coral reefs of Pleistocene Age and of non-bedded and amor- 
phous type lie unconformably in turn. 
Guppy has recorded raised reefs of Pleistocene Age at. 
heights as great as 1000 feet above sea level within the 
Solomons themselves. Active volcanoes occur in the group. 

‘ Seen in photographs taken by Messrs. Danvers Power and A. C. 
Mackay. 
* Guppy, H. B. ‘I'he Solomon Islands. Swann, Sonnenshein, London, 
1887. 
