ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 15 
highly popular one, and at the same time might be expected to prove 
of substantial value both to science and to the fishing industries. 
Coral-bores.—The subject of coral reefs has been prominent 
during the past year. A brief visit was paid to the Great Aus- 
tralian Barrier Reef by Prof. Agassiz last winter, and though his 
work was brought to an abrupt termination through unfavourable 
weather, Australian students will await with interest the observa- 
tion and conclusions of one so profoundly versed in the coral 
deposits of another hemisphere. More closely connected with 
ourselves was an expedition, first announced to you in the 
Presidential Address of 1895, the departure of which was described 
by my predecessor at our last anniversary. Professor Sollas, the 
leader appointed by the Royal Society Committee for investigating 
coral reefs by boring and sounding, was with his party safely con- 
veyed to the atoll of Funafuti by H.M.S. “Penguin.” The’ tale 
of his repeated efforts and ill success in penetrating the atoll by 
means of the diamond drill is told by himself in a report to the 
Royal Society.!. It appears that the substance of an atoll had 
been assumed to be compact and homogeneous rock, whereas the 
diamond drill revealed it as chambered with subterraneous caverns 
full of loose foraminiferal sand. The mechanism in the hands of 
the expedition not having been selected for such a contingency, 
was unable to reach to any considerable depth, and the boring 
was of necessity abandoned. 
So successful however, was the alternate method of inquiry— 
by sounding,—that, although not allowing a demonstration as 
absolute as a handful of ash in a boring tube would afford, it has 
_ yet given us a probable clue to the structure of an atoll. Uncon- 
nected with other members of the Archipelago, springing alone 
from the abyssal floor of the Pacific, Funafuti towers upwards in 
% cone, from a base thirty miles in diameter to a height of 12,000 
feet. Such a cone cannot be mistaken for aught but a volcano, 
and its outlines accord with those of giants like Mount Etna or 
1 Nature, Feb. 18, 1897. 
