392 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
&c. which do not appear to be fossils, as indica¬ 
tions of the submarine origin of the mountains, 
and have supposed they were deposited on the 
rocks, near the surface of which they are now 
found, when those rocks formed the bed of the 
ocean, and prior to those violent explosive convul¬ 
sions by which they were raised to their present 
elevation, and formed the groups of islands now 
under consideration. 
These are but mere speculative opinions, and 
however strong the indications of such an origin 
might appear to our own minds, we could not de¬ 
monstrate that the different islands now existing 
had not formerly belonged to one large island. 
Neither could we shew that they were not the re¬ 
mains of a continent, originally stretching across 
the Pacific, and uniting Asia and America, which, 
having been overflowed by the waters of the deluge, 
might have disappeared after those disruptions had 
taken place, by which the fountains of the great 
deep were broken up. Such speculations would 
have been useless, and we should only have perplex¬ 
ed the minds of the people with our own opinions. 
In general, we endeavoured to direct them to the 
records of that great event preserved in the Scrip¬ 
tures ; in the traditionary accounts of which, per¬ 
petuated, as they were likely to be, by the descend¬ 
ants of the family of Noah for many generations, 
their own traditions, with those of the Sandwich 
Islanders, and other neighbouring tribes, had pro¬ 
bably originated. I have frequently conversed 
with the people on the subject, both in the northern 
and southern groups, but could never learn that they 
had any accounts of the windows of heaven having 
been opened, or the rain having descended. In 
the legend of Ruahatu, the Toamarama of Tahiti, 
