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Updated: June 10, 2025
In the second section of the first chapter, I have shown that there are in the neighbourhood of atolls, some deeply submerged banks, with level surfaces; that there are others, less deeply but yet wholly submerged, having all the characters of perfect atolls, but consisting merely of dead coral-rock; that there are barrier-reefs and atolls with merely a portion of their reef, generally on the leeward side, submerged; and that such portions either retain their perfect outline, or they appear to be quite effaced, their former place being marked only by a bank, conforming in outline with that part of the reef which remains perfect.
Nor can I quite pass over the probability of the former existence of large archipelagoes of lofty islands, where now only rings of coral-rock scarcely break the open expanse of the sea, throwing some light on the distribution of the inhabitants of the other high islands, now left standing so immensely remote from each other in the midst of the great oceans.
The strip of dry land is only a few hundred yards in width; on the lagoon side there is a white calcareous beach, the radiation from which under this sultry climate was very oppressive; and on the outer coast, a solid broad flat of coral-rock served to break the violence of the open sea.
Lyell a very interesting pamphlet, entitled "Remarks upon Coral Formations," etc., by J. Couthouy, Boston, United States, 1842. With respect to the thickness of masses of coral-rock, it clearly appears, from the descriptions given by Mr.
We see an island, which may be compared to a castle situated on the summit of a lofty submarine mountain, protected by a great wall of coral-rock, always steep externally and sometimes internally, with a broad level summit, here and there breached by narrow gateways, through which the largest ships can enter the wide and deep encircling moat.
I cannot refrain from once again remarking on the singularity of these complex structures a great sandy and generally concave disk rises abruptly from the unfathomable ocean, with its central expanse studded, and its edge symmetrically bordered with oval basins of coral-rock just lipping the surface of the sea, sometimes clothed with vegetation, and each containing a lake of clear water!
VAVAO. There is a chart of this singularly formed island, by Espinoza: according to Mr. Williams it consists of coral-rock: the Chevalier Dillon informs me that it is not fringed; not coloured. Nor are the islands of LATTE and AMARGURA, for I have not seen plans on a large scale of them, and do not know whether they are fringed.
He visited three of them, namely, DOMINICANA, CHRISTIANA, and ROAPOA; their beaches are strewed with rounded masses of coral, and although no regular reefs exist, yet the shore is in many places lined by coral-rock, so that a boat grounds on this formation.
Zeppa taught them everything, because no one else knew anything, except of course Waroonga, who, however, was not much in advance of his native congregation save in spiritual matters. Zeppa showed them how to burn lime out of the coral-rock, and they gazed with open-eyed and open-mouthed wonder at the process.
Lieutenant Boteler's narrative contains fuller particulars regarding the coral-rock, volume i., page 174, and volume ii., pages 41 and 54.
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