400 PACIFIC OCEAN. 
lands where there are now only humble monumental atolls. Had 
there been no growing coral the whole would have passed without a 
record. ‘These permanent registers, planted ages past in various 
parts of the tropics, exhibit in enduring characters the oscillations 
which the “stable” earth has since undergone. Thus Divine wisdom 
creates and makes His creations inscribe their own history ; and there 
is a noble pleasure in deciphering even one sentence in this Book of 
Nature. 
From the actual extent of the coral reefs and islands, we infer that 
the whole amount of high land lost to the Pacific by the subsidence, 
was at least fifty thousand square miles. But since atolls are necessarily 
smaller than the land they cover, and the more so, the farther the subsi- 
dence has proceeded ;—since many lands, from their abrupt shores, or 
through volcanic agency must have had no reefs about them, and 
have disappeared without a mark ;—and others may have subsided too 
rapidly for the corals to retain themselves at the surface; it is obvious 
that this estimate is far below the truth. It is apparent that in many 
cases, islands now disjoined, have been once connected, and thus 
several atolls may have been made about the heights of a single sub- 
siding island of large size. Such facts show farther error in the 
above estimate, evincing that the scattered atolls and reefs do not tell 
half the story. Why is it, also, that the Pacific islands are confined 
to the tropics, if not that beyond thirty degrees the zoophyte could 
not plant its growing registers ? 
Yet we should beware of hastening to the conclusion that a conti- 
nent once occupied the place of the ocean, or a large part of it, which 
is without proof. To establish the former existence of a Pacific 
continent is an easy matter for the fancy ; but Geology knows nothing 
of it, nor even of its probability. 
The island of Banabe in this archipelago affords evidence of a 
subsidence im progress, as my friend, Mr. Horatio Hale, the Philo- 
logist of the Expedition, gathered from a foreigner who had been 
for a while a resident on this island. Mr. Hale remarks, after ex- 
plaining the character of certain sacred structures of stone: “It 
seems evident that the constructions at Ualan and Banabe are of the 
same kind, and were built for the same purpose. It is also clear that 
when the latter were raised, the islet on which they stand was ina 
different condition from what it now is. For at present they are 
actually in the water; what were once paths, are now passages for 
canoes, and as O’Connell [his informant] says, ‘when the walls are 
broken down the water enters the inclosures.’” Mr. Hale hence 
