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Updated: June 13, 2025
Among the other most remarkable spectacles which we have beheld, may be ranked the Southern Cross, the cloud of Magellan, and the other constellations of the southern hemisphere the waterspout the glacier leading its blue stream of ice, overhanging the sea in a bold precipice a lagoon-island raised by the reef-building corals an active volcano and the overwhelming effects of a violent earthquake.
There can be little doubt, from the account given by Captain Beechey, that Matilda atoll, in the Low Archipelago, has been converted in the space of thirty-four years, from being, as described by the crew of a wrecked whaling vessel, a "reef of rocks" into a lagoon-island, fourteen miles in length, with "one of its sides covered nearly the whole way with high trees."
Chamisso has described the natural history of a lagoon-island in the Radack Archipelago; and it is remarkable how closely its inhabitants, in number and kind, resemble those of Keeling Island. There is one lizard and two waders, namely, a snipe and curlew.
Even a huge land-crab is furnished by nature with the means to open and feed on this most useful production. The ring-formed reef of the lagoon-island is surmounted in the greater part of its length by linear islets. On the northern or leeward side, there is an opening through which vessels can pass to the anchorage within.
Among the other most remarkable spectacles which we have beheld, may be ranked, the Southern Cross, the cloud of Magellan, and the other constellations of the southern hemisphere the water-spout the glacier leading its blue stream of ice, overhanging the sea in a bold precipice a lagoon-island raised by the reef-building corals an active volcano and the overwhelming effects of a violent earthquake.
As the reef of a lagoon-island generally supports many separate small islands, the word "island," applied to the whole, is often the cause of confusion; hence I have invariably used in this volume the term "atoll," which is the name given to these circular groups of coral-islets by their inhabitants in the Indian Ocean, and is synonymous with "lagoon-island."
Even a huge land-crab is furnished by nature with the means to open and feed on this most useful production. The ring-formed reef of the lagoon-island is surmounted in the greater part of its length by linear islets. On the northern or leeward side there is an opening through which vessels can pass to the anchorage within.
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