90 THE CORAL REEFS OF THE MALDIVES. 



on the chart, the opening into the lagoon over the western rim being much 

 narrower than when it was surveyed in 1836. The beaches of Milandu 

 are all steep, of coral shingle, even the inner beaches flanking the eastern 

 face of the lagoon. The dumb-bell shape of the crescent-shaped Milandu 

 Island indicates that at one time there were two islands on the extremities 

 of the reef flats of the faro ; the spits making both ways and extending 

 north and south from them, they gradually joined and finally formed a 

 single crescentic island. 



The structure of Nalandu (PI. 44, fig. 2), the northernmost of the 

 crescent-shaped islands of Miladummadulu, throws considerable light on 

 the mode of formation of atolls which, like Kuludu, Filadu, and others, have 

 both a lagoon and a sink, or enclosed bay, once forming a part of the outer 

 rim reef flat. Nalandu is a small island, less than a mile in diameter, with a 

 lagoon two fathoms deep and a pass open to the south ; it also has a closed 

 sink or bay, one fathom in depth, communicating with the lagoon and con- 

 siderably larger than the lagoon itself. At low tide a great part of the sink 

 is bare, the bottom being fine coral ooze ; it is an exceedingly pretty sheet 

 of water surrounded on all sides by clumps of large forest trees, with bays 

 and bights reaching out from all faces. The sink is separated from the 

 eastern part of the lagoon by a low sand point covered with a thick tangle 

 of bushes and trees ; a wide rim covered by tall forest trees and man- 

 groves divides it from the sea on the eastern and western sides ; it is 

 flanked on the north by a narrow rim flat. On the outer face Nalandu is 

 surrounded by steep coral shingle beaches ; off the western face of the 

 island lies a small reef flat awash ; on its outer edge a belt of boulders 

 and heaps of shingle have been thrown up; they pass into the boulder 

 and shingle spits of the horns of the island. The southeastern face of the 

 island, as well as the western point, is wasting away. 



To the west of Ereadu begins an inner line of small, steep to islands, 

 with the exception of Kabafaro, which is crescentrshaped and flanked by a 

 small reef flat. This inner line of islands runs northerly from Ereadu to 

 Fivaku, nearly parallel to the eastern face of Miladummadulu, at a distance 

 of from two to three miles. They have no distinguishing features from 

 similar inner or outer islands of other groups in the Maldives. 



