Abstract
WHILE feeling some diffidence about setting myself in opposition to so careful an observer as the Rev. S. J. Whitmee (NATURE vol. xii., p. 291), I cannot allow his statements in regard to changes of level in the island of Savaii, Samoan group, to pass altogether unchallenged. In the month of June 1874 I spent some weeks on the island, during which time I travelled around nearly the whole of it on foot. Though not a scientific observer, I was on the look-out for indications of change of level along the coast, and it is my decided opinion that such indications are quite as little apparent in Savaii as in Upolu. Mr. Whitmee, whom I had the pleasure of meeting on the island, directed my attention to what he believed to be a line of upheaved cliffs a couple of hundred yards back from the sea, near Tufu, on the south side of the island. On examining the place, after parting from Mr. Whitmee, I particularly observed that the floor of volcanic rock at the base of the cliffs bore exactly the appearance of lava that had cooled in the open air. The creases and ripples left on the surface of the lava in cooling were distinctly visible, which could not have been the case if the rock had ever been exposed to the action of the waves. No doubt was left on my mind that the floor of volcanic rock between the base of the cliffs and the sea was at one time on a level with the top of the cliffs, and that it had broken away and sunk several feet, from some cause which I do not attempt to explain.
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WEBB, R. Changes of Level in the Island of Savaii. Nature 12, 476 (1875). https://doi.org/10.1038/012476a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/012476a0
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