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. LETTER 536. TO D. SHARPE.