352 ViCl IS LANDS: 
large reef which les opposite this place, at a distance from the shore, 
is also about three feet above water at low tide. 
The shore reef, which is about half a mile wide, very gradually 
inclines from its upper limits to the outer edge, where the coral is 
now growing; we have hence no proof that the elevation here was a 
sudden one. 
Similar facts to the above I observed on Ovalau, also at Sandal-wood 
Bay, Mathuata and Mali, on Vanua Lebu. At Mathuata, on the 
last-mentioned island, the village plain rests in part on the coral 
reef. In the bed of a small stream, which empties there, large corals, 
now dead, may be seen “in situ” at high water level; and on the 
island opposite, similar coral occurs two feet above low tide, while the 
live coral around the same island does not now grow within two feet 
of low water level. ‘These facts show satisfactorily that these islands 
have experienced a small elevation—probably four or five feet—since 
the reefs commenced to form. 
Without more extended observation, we cannot state how far this 
rise has prevailed over the Feejee Group. Both the larger islands, 
and Ovalau near one of them, have been affected by it: whether the 
eastern islands have experienced a similar elevation remains undeter- 
mined; yet from the extent of the bare reefs without islets, as shown 
on the map of the group, there is more reason to suspect a subsidence 
than a rise. 
Besides the general elevation, above described, there is some evi- 
dence of local elevations. A common report among the white resi- 
dents affirms that an extensive bed of corals, covered with numerous 
shells, is found a hundred feet above the sea on the island of Kan- 
tavu. They describe the coral tract as two or three miles in extent, 
and also state that the natives account for these facts by referring 
to a great deluge. ‘This account has been repeated to me by three 
different persons, who say that they have seen the corals and shells. 
Oniata, a small island one hundred feet high, in the eastern portion 
of the group, is described as covered with coral, or as consisting 
wholly of coral rock. But the accounts are so vague and uncertain 
that they merit little credence without farther confirmation. 
