found in Professor J.B. Jukes, who accompanied H.M.S. "Fly", as naturalist,
during the survey of the Great Barrier-Reef--in the years 1842 to 1846.
Jukes, who was a man of great acuteness as well as independence of mind,
concludes his account of the great Australian reefs with the following
words:--"After seeing much of the Great Barrier-Reefs, and reflecting much
upon them, and trying if it were possible by any means to evade the
conclusions to which Mr. Darwin has come, I cannot help adding that his
hypothesis is perfectly satisfactory to my mind, and rises beyond a mere
hypothesis into the true theory of coral-reefs."

As the result of the clear exposition of the subject by Darwin, Lyell,
Dana, and Jukes, the theory of coral-reefs had, by the middle of the
present century, commanded the almost universal assent of both biologists
and geologists. In 1859 Baron von Richthofen brought forward new facts in
its support, by showing that the existence of the thick masses of dolomitic
limestone in the Tyrol could be best accounted for if they were regarded as
of coralline origin and as being formed during a period of long continued
subsidence. The same views were maintained by Professor Mojsisovics in his
"Dolomit-riffe von Sudtirol und Venetien," which appeared in 1879.

The first serious note of dissent to the generally accepted theory was
heard in 1863, when a distinguished German naturalist, Dr. Karl Semper,
declared that his study of the Pelew Islands showed that uninterrupted
subsidence could not have been going on in that region. Dr. Semper's
objections were very carefully considered by Mr. Darwin, and a reply to
them appeared in the second and revised edition of his "Coral-Reefs," which
was published in 1874. With characteristic frankness and freedom from
prejudice, Darwin admitted that the facts brought forward by Dr. Semper
proved that in certain specified cases, subsidence could not have played
the chief part in originating the peculiar forms of the coral-islands. But