386 
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 
schists and slates. It is quite possible that in the north¬ 
west of the island, where earthquakes are frequent and 
at times severe, and where there are signs of upheaval 
over wide areas, further knowledge of the country may 
reveal the existence of active craters. There is no lack 
of evidences of volcanic action, both past and present, in the 
islands from the Louisiades to Humboldt Bay. Beginning 
with the D’Entrecasteaux group, all appear to be volcanic, 
the focus of action being now centred in Ferguson Island, 
where, on the west coast, over an area of eight or ten 
square miles, are numerous boiling springs, geysers of hot 
mud and saline lakes, and thousands of fumaroles, with 
considerable deposits of sulphur. The long chain of 
islands from New Britain to the Schouten group, which 
have already been alluded to, have a similar origin. 
The recent superficial deposits occupy an enormous 
area, at all events in the British territory. The whole of 
the coast line of the Gulf of Papua and the vast basin of 
the Ely River is thus composed, and probably the area 
south of the Charles Louis range also. Upraised coral 
reefs are a marked feature of St. Aignan and other parts 
of the Louisiades, of the peninsula forming the northern 
limit of Goodenough Bay, of the Stirling range, where 
they are found at a height of 2000 feet or more, and of 
many parts of the German territory, especially in the 
neighbourhood of Finschhafen. At Dorei Bay they are 
well marked. In most of the islands and localities 
examined by Mr. A. G. Maitland of the Queensland 
Geological Survey, these elevated reef - masses, when 
viewed from a distance, present the appearance of 
vertical walls and level terraces, stretching often for con¬ 
siderable distances, and the faces of these cliffs are some¬ 
times covered with vegetation to such an extent as to 
present the appearance of a huge wall of foliage. The 
