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Darwin's “Eye of Reason”: Natural Selection and the Mathematical Sublime

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Gary Willingham-McLain
Gary Willingham-McLain
Affiliation:
Carnegie Mellon University
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Extract

According to charles darwin's subsidence theory of coral reef formation, coral polyps laid the foundation fifty million years ago for a Pacific reef now known as Enewetak Atoll (Wood 12). At that time Enewetak was simply a ring of coral around the fringe of a sinking island mountain. Able to live only near the ocean's surface, however, corals build upon previous generations of coral structure as their land base sinks, and in the case of Enewetak this process continued long after the mountain's peak first submerged. Today Enewetak Atoll rises above the original mountain seven-tenths of a mile (two-and-a-half times the height of the Chicago Sears Tower) before it reaches its apex in a circle of lagoon islands on the ocean's surface.

Type
Research Article
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , Spring 1997 , pp. 67 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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