File:Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum of Polynesian Ethnology and Natural History (1899) (16744906526).jpg

Title: Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum of Polynesian Ethnology and Natural History
Identifier: acs9793.0001.001.umich.edu
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum
Subjects: Natural history; Ethnology
Publisher: Honolulu : Bishop Museum Press
Contributing Library: University of Michigan
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Michigan

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i6 INDEX ro THE PACIEIC ISLANDS. canic^ eruptions frequently occurring in some part of that territory. A region of such marked volcanic chara6ler might be expeAed to exhibit the concomitant phenomena of earth movements, both earthquakes and the grander if less obtrusive movements of elevation and depression, and it was the latter change in level that gave Darwin the foundation of his ingenious theory of the formation of Coral Islands. — Most important, both from a geological and a zoological standpoint are the buildings of the coral-forming polyp. Throughout the portion of the Pacific between the dotted lines on the diagram of this ocean (Fig. 2) this minute animal has by the force of numbers greatly increased the area of habitable land, made harbors
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FIG. 2. DIAGRAM OF ISOCHRVMEvS BETWEEN WHICH REEF-CORALS OCCUR. possible, and changed if not created currents in the equatorial sea. This is not a work now complete or of paroxysmal or interniitent nature, but it is a work of the present day, like the seolic erosion of valleys and shows no sign of diminution. While the other great agency in the formation of the intra-Pacific lands, vulcan- ism, seems to be diminishing from Hawaii to the Solomon Islands, the coral polyp, all unconscious, it may be, as the volcano of its mighty work, goes on building up reefs which in time become habitable islands. As a certain degree of warmth is needed for the life as well as growth of reef- forming corals, and not all corals come into this class, the boundaries of the coral region both north and south of the equator will be determined by the isocryme (or line of equal cold) of 68 F,, colder water preventing their growth, and their activity in- creasing with the mean temperature. In the hotter water under the equator the tem- (100)

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