180 DISTRIBUTION OF CORAL-REEFS. Cn. VI. 
likewise described the primitive rocks, as coated to a con- 
siderable height with coral. Some small islets eastward of 
Timor are said in Kolff’s Voyage 1 to resemble small coral 
islets upraised some feet above the sea. Dr. Malcolmson 
informs me that Dr. Hardie found in Java an extensive 
formation, containing an abundance of shells, of which the 
greater part appear to be of existing species. Dr. Jack 2 
has described some upraised shells and corals, apparently 
recent, on Pulo Nias off Sumatra ; and Marsden relates in 
his history of this great island, that the names of many 
promontories show that they were originally islands. On 
part of the west coast of Borneo and at the Sooloo Islands, 
the form of the land, the nature of the soil, and the water- 
washed rocks, present appearances 3 (although it is doubt- 
ful whether such vague evidence is worthy of mention) of 
having recently been covered by the sea ; and the inhabi- 
tants of the Sooloo Islands believe that this has been the 
case. Mr. Cuming, who has lately investigated with so 
much success the mollusca of the Phillippines, found near 
Cabagan, in Luzon, about 50 feet above the level of the 
R. Cagayan and 70 miles from its mouth, a large bed of 
fossil shells : these, as he informs me, are certainly of the 
same species with those now existing on the shores of the 
neighbouring islands. From the accounts given by Captain 
1 Translated by Windsor Earl, chaps, vi. and vii. 
2 Geolog. Transact. 2nd series, vol. i. p. 403. On the Peninsula 
of Malacca, in front of Penang, 5° 30' N., Dr. Ward collected some 
shells which Dr. Malcolmson informs me, although not compared 
with existing species, had a recent appearance. Dr. Ward describes 
in this neighbourhood (Trans. Asiat. Soc. vol. xviii., part 2, p. 166) a 
single water-worn rock, with a conglomerate of sea-shells at its base, 
situated six miles inland, which, according to the traditions of the 
natives, was once surrounded by the sea. Captain Low has also 
described (ibid. Part i. p. 131) mounds of shells lying two miles 
inland on this line of coast. 
3 Notices of the East Indian Arch., Singapore, 1828, p. 6, and 
Append, p. 43. 
