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Updated: October 2, 2026
Drift timber is thrown up on most islands, even on those in the midst of the widest oceans; and the natives of the coral-islands in the Pacific, procure stones for their tools, solely from the roots of drifted trees, these stones being a valuable royal tax.
In this way, those marvellous coral-reefs and coral-islands have been made. Branch by branch, layer by layer, the hard Coral is built up by myriads of the small, soft-bodied creatures. This kind of polyp can live only in warm, clear water.
There are many such lagoons, and this one, called by the fish-world, "Coral-Land," because of the beautiful coral within its depths, was only one of many coral-lands, for coral-islands, and coral-reefs are found everywhere in tropical seas. Sometimes these coral-reefs are found near the shores of large islands, or continents, and then they are called Shore-Reefs.
Therefore, the "our friend" dispersed a common gratulatory glow. Very small points, my masters; but how are coral-islands built? Mrs. Chump fanned her cheek, in complete ignorance of the offence and defence.
But on the coral-islands supposed to have been produced by subsidence, we have proofs of changes in their external appearance of a round of decay and renovation of the last vestiges of land on some of its first commencement on others: we hear of storms desolating them to the astonishment of their inhabitants: we know by the great fissures with which some of them are traversed, and by the earthquakes felt under others, that subterranean disturbances of some kind are in progress.