[20] Lutké’s “Voyage,” vol. ii, p. 304.
In the East Indian Archipelago, many authors have recorded proofs of recent elevation. M. Lesson[[21]] states, that near Port Dory, on the north coast of New Guinea, the shores are flanked, to the height of 150 feet, by madreporitic strata of modern date. He mentions similar formations at Waigiou, Amboina, Bourou, Ceram, Sonda, and Timor: at this latter place, MM. Quoy and Gaimard[[22]] have likewise described the primitive rocks, as coated to a considerable height with coral. Some small islets eastward of Timor are said in Kolff’s “Voyage,”[[23]] 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[[24]] 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[[25]] (although it is doubtful whether such vague evidence is worthy of mention), of having recently been covered by the sea; and the inhabitants of the Sooloo Islands believe that this has been the case. Mr. Cuming, who has lately investigated, with so much success, the natural history of the Philippines, found near Cabagan, in Luzon, about fifty feet above the level of the R. Cagayan, and seventy miles from its mouth, a large bed of fossil shells: these, he informs me, are of the same species with those now existing on the shores of the neighbouring islands. From the accounts given us by Captain Basil Hall and Captain Beechey[[26]] of the lines of inland reefs, and walls of coral-rock worn into caves, above the present reach of the waves, at the Loo Choo Islands, there can be little doubt that they have been upraised at no very remote period.
[21] Partie Zoolog., “Voyage de la Coquille.”
[22] “Ann. des Scien. Nat.” tom. vi, p. 281.
[23] Translated by Windsor Earl, chapters vi, vii.
[24] “Geolog. Transact.” 2nd series, vol. i, p. 403. On the Peninsula of Malacca, in front of Pinang, 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 ii, 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.
[25] “Notices of the East Indian Arch.” Singapore, 1828, p. 6, and Append., p. 43.
[26] Captain B. Hall, “Voyage to Loo Choo,” Append., pp. xxi and xxv. Captain Beechey’s “Voyage,” p. 496.
Dr. Davy[[27]] describes the northern province of Ceylon as being very low, and consisting of a limestone with shells and corals of very recent origin; he adds, that it does not admit of a doubt that the sea has retired from this district even within the memory of man. There is also some reason for believing that the western shores of India, north of Ceylon, have been upraised within the recent period.[[28]] Mauritius has certainly been upraised within the recent period, as I have stated in the chapter on fringing-reefs. The northern extremity of Madagascar is described by Captain Owen[[29]] as formed of madreporitic rock, as likewise are the shores and outlying islands along an immense space of Eastern Africa, from a little north of the equator for nine hundred miles southward. Nothing can be more vague than the expression “madreporitic rock;” but at the same time it is, I think, scarcely possible to look at the chart of the linear islets, which rise to a greater height than can be accounted for by the growth of coral, in front of the coast, from the equator to 2° S., without feeling convinced that a line of fringing-reefs has been elevated at a period so recent, that no great changes have since taken place on the surface of this part of the globe. Some, also, of the higher islands of madreporitic rock on this coast, for instance Pemba, have very singular forms, which seem to show the combined effect of the growth of coral round submerged banks, and their subsequent upheaval. Dr. Allan informs me that he never observed any elevated organic remains on the Seychelles, which come under our fringed class.
[27] “Travels in Ceylon,” p. 13. This madreporitic formation is mentioned by M. Cordier in his report to the Institute (May 4th, 1839), on the voyage of the Chevrette, as one of immense extent, and belonging to the latest tertiary period.