Cn. VT. DISTRIBUTION OF CORAL-REEFS. 
183 
a decrease in the elevation of tlie shores in the middle parts 
of the Eed Sea, for Dr. Malcolmson informs me that he 
collected shells and corals, apparently recent, from the 
cliffs of Camaran Island (lat. 15° 30' N.) at a height of 
between 30 and 40 feet ; and Mr. Salt (Travels in Abyssinia) 
describes a similar formation a little southward on the op- 
posite shore at Amphila. Moreover, near the mouth of the 
Gulf of Suez, although on the coast opposite to that on 
which Dr. Ruppell says that the modern beds attain a 
height of only 30 to 40 feet, Mr. Burton 1 found a deposit 
replete with existing species of shells, at the height of 200 
feet. In an admirable series of drawings by Captain 
Moresby, I could see how continuously the cliff-bounded, 
low, tertiary plains extended with a nearly equable height, 
both on the eastern and western shores. The southern 
coast of Arabia seems to have been subjected to the same 
elevatory movement, for Dr. Malcolmson found at Sahar 
low cliff's containing shells and corals apparently of recent 
species. 
The Persian Gulf abounds with coral-reefs ; but as in 
this shallow sea it is difficult to distinguish reefs from 
sandbanks, I have coloured only some near the mouth. 
Towards the head of the gulf Mr. Ainsworth 2 says that the 
land is worn into terraces, and that the strata contain 
organic remains of existing forms. 
The West Indian Archipelago of 1 fringed islands ’ alone 
remains to be mentioned : evidence of an elevation within 
a late tertiary epoch of nearly the whole of this great area, 
may be found in the works of almost all the geologists who 
have visited it. I will give some of the principal references 
in a note. 3 
1 Lyell’s Principles of Geology, 5th edition, vol. iv. p. 25. 
2 Ainsworth’s Assyria and Babylon, p. 217. 
3 These references only relate to works published before 1842 
the date of the first edition of this book. On Florida and the north 
shores of the Gulf of Mexico, Rogers’ Report to Brit. Assoc, vol. hi. 
