[13] Cook’s “Third Voyage” (4to edition), volume i., page 314.
[14] Ibid., volume i., page 235.
[15] “Remarks on Coral-Formations,” page 50.
Still proceeding westward we come to the New Hebrides; on these islands, Mr. G. Bennett (author of “Wanderings in New South Wales”), informs me he found much coral at a great altitude, which he considered of recent origin. Respecting Santa Cruz, and the Salomon Archipelago, I have no information; but at New Ireland, which forms the northern point of the latter chain, both Labillardière and Lesson have described large beds of an apparently very modern madreporitic rock, with the form of the corals little altered. The latter author[[16]] states that this formation composes a newer line of coast, modelled round an ancient one. There only remains to be described in the Pacific, that curved line of fringed islands, of which the Marianas form the main part. Of these Guam, Rota, Tiniam, Saypan, and some islets farther north, are described by Quoy and Gaimard,[[17]] and Chamisso,[[18]] as chiefly composed of madreporitic limestone, which attains a considerable elevation, and is in several cases worn into successively rising cliffs: the two former naturalists seem to have compared the corals and shells with the existing ones, and state that they are of recent species. Fais, which lies in the prolonged line of the Marianas, is the only island in this part of the sea which is fringed; it is ninety feet high, and consists entirely of madreporitic rock.[[19]]
[16] “Voyage de la ‘Coquille’,” Part. Zoolog.
[17] Freycinet’s “Voyage autour du Monde.” See also the “Hydrographical Memoir,” page 215.
[18] Kotzebue’s “First Voyage.”
[19] Lutké’s “Voyage,” volume ii., page 304.
In the East Indian Archipelago, many authors have recorded proofs of recent elevation. M. Lesson[[20]] 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[[21]] 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,”[[22]] 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[[23]] 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[[24]] (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 Phillippines, 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[[25]] 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.
[20] Partie Zoolog., “Voyage de la ‘Coquille’.”