The Glacial Theory of Coral Reefs ¹

Abstract

SUESS'S demonstration that many of the relative changes of land and sea may be due to variations in the height of the sea, while the land remained stationary, and his suggestion that Darwin's theory of coral reefs was as consistent with a rise of the sea surface as with a subsidence of the sea floor, were followed by various attempts thus to explain the phenomena of coral islands. This explanation has now received its strongest support in a valuable memoir by Prof. R. A. Daly, who brings to the problem his usual thoroughness and ingenuity. His interest in the question was roused by the coral reefs of the Hawaiian Islands, which are so small that they are clearly young, and were probably all formed after the disappearance of the glaciers that once existed around the summit of Mauna Kea.