The Completed Coral Island. 67 



AchyranthuSf one species ; a species of grass. One or two rubiaceous 

 shrubs. Polypodium. 



On Rose Island, Dr Pickering found only the Pisonia and a Par- 

 tulacca. The Triumphetta procumbens, a creeping plant, takes root, 

 like the Portulacca^ in the most barren sands, and is very common. 

 The Tournefortia and Saevola are also among the earliest species. 

 The Pisonia^ a tree of handsome foliage, the Pandanus, or screw- 

 pine, and the cocoa-nut (always an introduced species), constitute the 

 larger part of the forests. In the Marshall group, where the vege- 

 tation is more varied, Chamisso observed fifty-two native plants, and, 

 in a few instances, the banana, tare, and bread-fruit. 



The language of the natives indicates their poverty, as well as the 

 limited productions and unvarvinof features of the land. All words, 

 like those for mountain, hill, river, and many of the implements of 

 their ancestors, as well as the trees and other vegetation of the land 

 from which they are derived, are lost to them ; and as words are but 

 signs for ideas, they have fallen off in general intelligence. It 

 would be an interesting inquiry for the philosopher, to what extent 

 a race of men, placed in such circumstances, are capable of mental 

 improvement. Perhaps the query might be best answered by another : 

 How many of the various arts of civilized life could exist in a land 

 where shells are the only cutting instruments "? The plants, in all 

 but twenty-nine in number, — but a single mineral, — quadrupeds, 

 none, with the exception of foreign mice, — fresh water barely enough 

 for household purposes, — no streams, nor mountains, nor hills ! 

 How much of the poetry or literature of Europe would be intelligible 

 to persons whose ideas had expanded only to the limits of a coral 

 island, — who had never conceived of a surface of land above half a 

 mile in breadth, of a slope higher than a beach, of a change of 

 seasons beyond a variation in the prevalence of rains 1 What eleva- 

 tion in morals should be expected upon a contracted islet, so readily 

 overpeopled that threatened starvation drives to infanticide, and 

 tends to cultivate the extremest selfishness 1 Assuredly, there is 

 not a more unfavourable spot for moral or intellectual development in 

 the wide world than the Coral Island, with all its beauty of grove and 

 lake. 



These islands are exposed to earthquakes and storms, like the 

 continents, and occasionally a devastating wave sweeps across the 

 land. During the heavier gales the natives sometimes secure their 

 houses by tying them to the cocoa-nut trees, or to a stake planted 

 for the purpose. A height of ten or twelve feet, the elevation of 

 their land, is easily overtopped by the more violent seas ; and great 

 damage is sometimes experienced. The still more extensive earth- 

 quake waves, such as those which have swept up the coast of 

 Spain, Peru, and the Sandwich Islands, would produce a complete 

 deluge over these islands. — {United States^ Exploring Expedition. — 

 Geology. — By James Dana^ p. 75.) 



E 2 



