BENEATH TROPIC SEAS 



a few miles down shore. The water was choppy 

 and, to an unaided eye, quite opaque. The hght- 

 house passed astern and a big bay opened out 

 before us. Several natives were fishing and a flock 

 of pelicans watched and dived and rose again. We 

 put a water bucket overboard, threw up the blinds 

 of the wave-marred surface, and discovered Lam- 

 entin or Sea-cow Reef. Unlike Sand Cay it was 

 of a barrier or shore fringing type, and lay parallel 

 with the land, about four miles west of our 

 schooner. Also, unlike Sand Cay, its sea-fans and 

 gorgonias were subordinate to its corals — massive 

 brain mounds as big as automobiles, and elkhorn 

 forests twelve and fifteen feet high. 



We found a beautifully graded transition from 

 land to deep water, and took elaborate notes for 

 future technical papers. The cocoanut palms 

 gave place to a fringe of mangroves with their toes 

 wet by the high tides. Then came a sandy beach 

 reaching beyond low tide, next a zone of short, 

 hair-like grass, and a wide area of Thalassia or 

 eel -grass. Rather abruptly this merged into the 

 reef. The inner side of the reef was level and 

 shallow, wadable at low water. Small heads of 

 coral grew here — nubbin, branched and millepores. 



I found life in great abundance, and many forms 

 that did not occur farther out. Under every bit 

 of coral swarmed starfish — black, red, pied, grey, 

 orange and purple. Sea-urchins vied with them 

 in numbers, — long, needle-spined chaps, short, 

 stubby club-spined ones, and others fashioned like 



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