36 E. C. ANDREWS. 
great interglacial period was accompanied by an unlocking 
of water from the ice caps and a return of the water to the 
sea which gave it to them. Not only so, but Daly has 
reminded us also that this periodic lowering of ocean level 
was accompanied by a relative refrigeration of cosmo- 
politan influence, and that each recession of the ice caps. 
was associated with milder periods, and therefore with a 
relative revival of luxuriance of coral growth which had 
been materially checked by the formation of the great ice 
cap preceding it. 
During the Pleistocene, therefore, the stable blocks, 
such as Australia, were subjected to the action of storms,. 
waves, and currents, which resulted in the development 
thus of continental and island shelves. During the inter- 
glacial period these platforms were submerged slowly by 
the rising sea and were covered by coral reefs associated 
with submergence. The corals themselves could not 
approach the continental areas too closely because of 
the mud brought down by streams in times of flood. 
The last great ice cap belonging to the Pleistocene period 
has now returned its water content, in the main, to the 
sea, and the level of the great oceans has risen thus and 
submerged the old shelves of erosion. In these warmer 
waters, Which have submerged the shelves very gradually, 
coral reefs have grown luxuriantly to form the Great 
Barrier Reefs of Australia, New Caledonia, New Guinea, 
and Fiji. 
Is the effect of this recent refrigeration indicated on the 
unstable islets lying to the east of the Greater Solomons, 
New Caledonia, Fiji and other island groups ? 
In answer it may be pointed out that the coral reef plat- 
forms and the raised atolls, of Fiji, Tonga, and other groups 

