i68 
THE STRAIT OF SUNDA. 
" Brazils; or in throwing up, by some sudden and subse- 
" quent convulsion, the island of Amsterdam ; or in con- 
" tinning to this hour, through the means of animated beings, 
" the formation of new islands in the strait of Sunda/' 
The number and the magnitude of those w^onderful fabrics, 
dispersed over the Eastern ocean, and daily increasing in 
bulk and extent, furnish no weak support to that theory 
which supposes all marbles, limestones, and every species of 
calcareous rock, to have been the production of animated 
beings ; a theory that is rendered still more plausible from the 
myriads of minute shells- found in many of them, and of 
which some of the most beautiful of the marbles are almost 
"wholly composed. 
It cannot escape observation that no sooner have the points 
of the coral rocks reached the surface, so as to form a barrier 
for the accretion of adventitious matter floating on the waves, 
and by its accmnulation rise into an islet, than the seeds of 
the vegetable world burst into life : for all the islands of coral 
formation, perhaps without a single exception, are covered 
with plants. If then it really be the fact that new islands are 
thus continually forming, we shall be borne out in the con- 
clusion that a combination of animal and calcareous matter 
is more favourable to the production and growth of vegetables 
than the materials of such newly created islands as ow^e 
their origin to subterraneous fires. It would be incon- 
sistent to suppose that, where new surfaces are continually 
arising and yet no nakedness appears, the same slow progress 
had gradually taken place from the humble and almost un- 
