GEOLOGY: W. M. DAVIS 
201 
being 1030 feet: uplifted reefs in the Australasian archipelagoes are found at 
altitudes of 2000 and 3000 feet. 
On the other hand, the instability of the Australasian region is attested not 
only by the evidence afforded by coral reefs, but also as above noted, by many 
geological researches; those by Molengraaff and Abendanon are particularly 
instructive in this respect, and fully confirm Darwin's statement: — "North of 
Australia lies the most broken land of the globe, and there the rising parts are 
surrounded and penetrated by areas of subsidence" (143). Hence while Dar- 
win's general conclusion that " the rate of subsidence has not exceeded the up- 
ward growth of corals" (115) seems to hold true for the central Pacific, it is 
not valid for the region of the archipelagoes. The not infrequent occurrence 
there of subsidences at a rate sufficient to drown coral reefs ought to satisfy 
those objectors to Darwin's theory who have urged that it demands too great 
a uniformity, if not also too slow a rate in the movements of the earth's crust 
in oceanic areas. But let it be noted that rapid movements of subsidence, 
and also fringing reefs of a new generation which are formed along a shore 
where rapid subsidence had drowned pre-existing reefs, were explicitly recog- 
nized by Darwin as of possible occurrence — witness the first quotation from 
his Coral Reefs, above. 
Fringing reefs of a new generation on shores of submergence should there- 
fore be accepted as accounted for by Darwin's theory quite as well as other 
fringing reefs, and indeed as contributing their share towards verifying the 
theory, even though its author did not recognize any actual fringing reefs as 
of this origin. He colored all fringing reefs red on his chart, as indicating 
non-subsiding coasts; for even after pointing out the possibility of their forma- 
tion where "prolonged subsidence" has taken place, he added: "I have no 
reason to believe that .... any coast has been coloured wrongly 
with respect to movement indicated" (124). His information about the 
Philippines was scanty; he colored all their fringing reefs red, as indicative of 
stationary or rising coasts. 
There can indeed be little doubt that a number of other islands also, which 
have unconformable fringing reefs along their embayed shores, were wrongly 
classed by Darwin, who took no account of embayments or of unconformities. 
Striking instances of this kind might be pointed out in the Solomon group, 
where the small island of Fauro, for example, which is described by Guppy as 
a deeply denuded volcanic wreck, has a shore line of marked irregularity, a 
narrow fringing reef, and a well developed submarine platform from 40 to 
70 fathoms in depth: such a combination of features proclaims intermittent 
subsidence after long-continued subaerial erosion, the last movement being more 
rapid than reef upgrowth; yet all the members of the Solomon group are col- 
ored red on Darwin's chart, because the little information he had about them 
gave "a presumption that they are fringed" (167). Other examples of new 
fringing reefs on shores of submergence are found on the granitic islands of the 
Seychelles in the western Indian ocean, as will be again noted below. The 
