PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 51 
to have been stable during the greater portion of the 
Pleistocene, and this implies also the decided influence of 
marine erosion which has been long continued. The 
Loyalties show a moderate amount of movement in the 
late Pleistocene. 
New Zealand consists of convergent and syntactic arcs 
analogous with the island groups considered here. 
Fiji is a group which has been less stable than New 
Caledonia during the Kainozoic. Lau or eastern Fiji, 
indicates a vibratory movement in the later Pleistocene in 
the form of undulations. | 
Tonga, as also the Society Islands with the Paumotus, is 
less stable than Fiji with variable and recent movement. 
The Greater Solomons.—These may be classed as com- 
promises between the Fiji and the Tonga Groups. Both 
lie in the great Pacific Knot, and near the true Pacific 
Margin. 
(6) The Nature of these Island Strwetures.—During the 
whole of the Kainozoic period there appears to have been 
a flowage or creep of the south western Pacific region 
towards the north east and the east, that is towards the 
Main Pacific basin. If the existence of the ocean waters 
be ignored, the earth’s surface, in the region under discuss- 
ion, appears to pass in compound undulations or land waves, 
towards the eastern Pacific. These rings or undulations 
are broken along their strike and are progressively narrower 
and more separated if traced in radial directions from West 
Australia to the eastern edge of the Tasman and Coral 
_ Seas. The algebraic sum of the transference of matter 
during the oscillations forwards and backwards, as well as 
upwards and downwards, appears to be towards the Pacific, 
but the main movement is really that of waves with the 
production thereby of land crests and of troughs mutually 
