Pray forgive me for troubling you at such a length, but it has occurred to
me that you might be disposed to give, after your wide experience, your
judgment. If I am wrong, the sooner I am knocked on the head and
annihilated so much the better. It still seems to me a marvellous thing
that there should not have been much and long-continued subsidence in the
beds of the great oceans. I wish that some doubly rich millionaire would
take it into his head to have borings made in some of the Pacific and
Indian atolls, and bring home cores for slicing from a depth of 500 or 600
feet. (535/4. In 1891 a Committee of the British Association was formed
for the investigation of an atoll by means of boring. The Royal Society
took up the scheme, and an expedition was sent to Funafuti, with Prof.
Sollas as leader. Another expedition left Sydney in 1897 under the
direction of Prof. Edgeworth David, and a deeper boring was made. The
Reports will be published in the "Philosophical Transactions," and will
contain Prof. David's notes upon the boring and the island generally, Dr.
Hinde's description of the microscopic structure of the cores and other
examinations of them, carried on at the Royal College of Science, South
Kensington. The boring reached a depth of 1114 feet; the cores were found
to consist entirely of reef-forming corals in situ and in fragments, with
foraminifera and calcareous algae; at the bottom there were no traces of
any other kind of rock. It seems, therefore, to us, that unless it can be
proved that reef-building corals began their work at depths of at least 180
fathoms--far below that hitherto assigned--the result gives the strongest
support to Darwin's theory of subsidence; the test which Darwin wished to
be applied has been fairly tried, and the verdict is entirely in his
favour.)


2.IX.V. CLEAVAGE AND FOLIATION, 1846-1856.