The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs - Softcover

FROM THE BACK COVER ___ In 1842, when he first published this volume, Darwin was a little-known naturalist who had sailed around the world on H. M. S. Beagle. He had been impressed by the strange beauty and puzzling symmetry of the coral isles, with their massive foundations made up of aggregated minute coral shells. And he was fascinated by the problem of their origins. Having found that the coral animals live only at restricted depths, Darwin was led to the theory that forms the heart of this book: the mid-ocean reefs have grown up as underlying islands subsided beneath the sea. This contention, refined to deal with fringing and barrier reefs, was questioned and requestioned for more than a hundred years; only through recent deep drillings at Eniwetok did Darwin's hypothesis finally receive experimental verification. Republication of his elegant solution to the mysterious origins of the reefs is therefore especially appropriate now. The book remains a typical Darwin work-neat, modest, painstaking-and an outstanding scientific classic. ___ H. W. MENARD, who contributed the foreword, is Professor of Geology at the University of California, San Diego campus, and an authority on marine geology.