146 THE CORAL REEFS OF THE MALDIVES. 



with rain squalls prevailing. These conditions readily explain the differences 

 existing in the development of the land rims of Addu and of Minikoi. 



Addu (PI. 6) is irregularly triangular in outline, and seven miles from 

 north to south; its northern face is concave, about ten miles long, while 

 the others are slightly convex. The hook-shaped extension of the northern 

 point of Hitadu Island forms the northwestern horn of Addu, and the islets 

 extending westward from Midu flank the northeastern horn of the atoll. 

 There are two narrow and comparatively shallow passes, separated by islets 

 on a reef patch, in the central part of the northern face, and two wider 

 passes, the southeastern and the southwestern (PI. 77, fig. 2). Wide and 

 continuous reef flats occupy the whole of the western and eastern faces; 

 the flats are narrow along the northern face of the atoll. 



At Midu on the northeast corner of Addu the vegetation of the eastern 

 face is quite luxuriant ; that of Wiringili, the island flanking the western 

 face of the southeast pass of Addu, being, perhaps, as luxuriant as that of 

 any island in the Maldives. This fine vegetation extends to the islands 

 on the west face ; though south of Huludu the vegetation is poorer, and in 

 some of the smaller and narrow islands to the north of the southeast pass 

 it is reduced to mere scrub, so that steaming along the east face one can 

 look into the lagoon across the narrow belt of islands and islets. The 

 eastern edge of the reef flat is edged by a wide belt of masses of boulders 

 reaching the very base of the shingle beaches on the outer face of the 

 islands. Such a narrow land rim reminds one of similar lines of islands 

 in the Marshall Islands, where they form the merest wall separating the 

 lagoon from the ocean. On the sea face of Midu a wide sandy bay, 

 separated from the ocean by only a narrow belt of boulders, occupies the 

 central part of the island. 



The shingle beach on the outer face of "Wiringili is, perhaps, the highest 

 we have seen in the Maldives. Slight changes have taken place since 1836 

 in the topography of Wiringili, as represented on the chart. The long sand 

 spit edging the reef flat on the west side of the pass did not exist, and the 

 island to the west of Wiringili was not connected with it by a sand spit, as 

 it now is, these additions forming the sides of a great bay enclosing three 

 sides of the Wiringili reef flat. 



