56 THE CORAL REEFS OF THE MALDIVES. 



The lagoon has gradually filled ; it now consists only of a large bottle- 

 shaped pool towards the eastern end of the atoll, probably with four or 

 five fathoms of water, judging by its color. 



A narrow opening leads into the lagoon ; the pass is indicated by a 

 heap of boulders on the western face and a small sand-bar on the eastern. 

 The island of Karidu as it exists to-day does not, owing to the wasting 

 away of the western extremity, occupy as large a proportion of the area 

 of the reef flats as is indicated on Moresby's chart (1836). 



Malosmadulu Plateau. 



Plates 1, S; 8 a, fig. 5 ; 8 b, figs. 9, 10; 8 c, fig. 28; 22-80 ; 81, fig. 1. 



South, Middle, and North Malosmadulu resemble Male and Ari as far 

 as the location of the faros and of the islands on the outer faces of the 

 Malosmadulu plateaus is concerned (PI. 3). Their western face is flanked 

 by large faros, some of them over five miles in length, separated by wide 

 and deep passes. In fact, the faros are atolls of considerable size with as 

 great a variety in size and shape as exists among widely separated atolls 

 in other coral reef regions. Compare, for instance, such faros as Maduni 

 Faro, Ekuru Faro, Ma Faro, Defili Faro, Mawa Faro, which are lagoons 

 surrounded by wide reef flats, with faros having one or two islands on 

 the rims, such as Kandu Gandu, Bodu Faro, Femfuri Faro and Turadu, 1 

 having all the features of small independent atolls with a minimum of 

 land masses on the reef flats. The former really belong to the same 

 category as the atolls, though no islands or islets have as yet been 

 thrown up on the rim flats. 



The east face of North Malosmadulu and the southeast face of South 

 Malosmadulu are flanked by a few faros and a number of islands running 

 at right angles to the trend of the east face of Malosmadulu ; they are sepa- 

 rated by wide and deep passes, some of them over three miles in width. 



North Malosmadulu bears a close resemblance to Ari; like it, it is flanked 

 on the west by large faros and on the east by numerous islands, all steep 



1 Turadu, according to Gardiner, has become modified into a linear reef flat ; loc. cit., p. 380, fig. 94. 



