615 
high water, and consists of hard, compact, hreeciated coral conglomerate, with a shelving 
heach of coarse coralline and shelly sand, and a scanty superstratum composed of the coral 
debris sparingly mixed with vegetable matter, and a thin layer of guano deposited by the 
numerous turtle and floehs of terns, ganuets, and other aquatic birds that, like the former) 
make this their headquarters and favourite breeding-place. The whole constitutes a soil 
capable of supporting a scanty vegetation of weeds, coarse grass, and creepers, but some- 
times — as at Oairucross, the Howicks, Pipers, and many others — a dense scrub and well- 
grown mangroves — Oasuarince, Pandani, Pasowji®— and other trees common along this 
coast. Of this organic rock the beacon on Kaine Island was built eighteen or nineteen 
years ago ; and the durability of the material is shown by the fact that the structure has 
hitherto undergone no decay from weathering. It doubtless tops some crystalline 
formation, on which it has been slowly reared. Still, it is evident that, though now 
permanently out of, it must have been formed while under water, and have reached the 
surface at low water with the zoophytes which built it in full activity, when the greater 
part of the long reef now in full activity at the sea-level at ebb, and of which it forms 
only a fractitional part, was still many feet below. And now, w'hen the latter has 
reached close to the surface at low water, the former projects twenty feet in the air, 
but denuded by weathering of its soft and brittle exterior, with its dense solid interior 
laid bare, and its living, many-hued, branching madrepores replaced by less gaudy forms 
of vegetable life. 
“ Between the active coral reef still under water and the extinct ones now well 
raised above it, like Raine Island, we meet with many intermediate forms, occasionally 
as islets which consist of a sand-bank just showing above the surface, and either still 
unclad with vegetation or having a few sprouts of mangrove, the hardiest of trees, and 
usually the first to find a footing in the coarse coral debris, little capable, to all appear- 
ances, of sustaining life of any sort, while others show greater elevation, and both more 
extensive and better-clad area. In short, we find islands of this class in many different 
stages of upward progress, sometimes forming part of the reef, but more usually lying 
between it and the mainland.” 
The late Professor J. B. .Tukes mentioned* * * § the occurrence of pumice pebbles on 
a plain on the west side of Lizard Island, “at least one or two hundred yards back from 
the sea, and several feet above any possible tide.” 
A Raised Beach extends for five mite north of Camisade Creek, Temple Bay. 
It is ten or twelve feet above high-water mirk, is nearly a quarter of a mile in breadth, 
and is covered in places with blown sand. I have reason to remember this locality, 
where I was speared through the neck in the course of a murderous attack by the 
blacks, who filled up the tents of the party with spears.f 
Mr. G. Elphiustoue Dalrymple, in his Narrative of the Queensland North-east 
Coast Expedition, 1873, (p. 16,) J refers to a “high beach of broken coral, shells, and 
granite detritus,” on the north-west side of Fitzroy Island, and adds “ Here there is 
a recurrence of the old raised beaches and pumice pebbles rising in successive steps from 
the sea-level.” 
Mr. W. Saville Kent, E.L.S., in a Presidential Address to the Royal Society of 
Queensland (22nd November, 1890), § has the following: — 
“ Ap.art from the vital processes by which reefs and their component corals are 
continually adding to th eir bulk, there can be but little doubt that a slow motion of 
* Narrative of the Surveying Voyage of H.M.S. “riy," i, p. 95. London, 1847. . 
+ Report by R.L. J. on Explorations in Cape York Peninsula, 1879-80. Brisbane : by Authority : 
1881, p. 41. 
t Brisbane : by Authority : 1874. 
§ Proo. Ann. Meeting Roy. Soc. Queensland. Brisbane, 1891, p. 38. 
