MILADUMMADULU. 83 



increased in size so as nearly to become united, or they form only a single 

 crescent-shaped island on the outer edge of the rim reef flat. The further 

 change these crescentic islands undergo from the action of the monsoons are 

 often very striking. In fact, the crescent-shaped islands on the east face of 

 the group almost seem to move in the direction of the prevailing monsoon, 

 like great horseshoe-shaped dunes. Only their motion is limited to the 

 extension of the horns of the crescent in the direction of the wind until the 

 horns have locked, and the ring, once a crescent-shaped island partly 

 enclosing a small lagoon, ends in completely surrounding the lagoon and 

 forming the typical and mythical atoll so often described by writers on 

 geography, but which really is only found very rarely in the great atoll 

 regions of the Pacific, but finds its greatest development in the thousand 

 isles of the Maldives. The islands of the interior of the plateau are wasting; 

 the inner banks appear to be all of the same height ; and from the bridge 

 we could see no indications, from the discoloration of the water, of banks 

 growing up or having come near the surface. 



The crescentic islands on the eastern face of the northern part of 

 Tiladummati show this process of growth admirabty, and there we can readily 

 trace the development of a large single island from two smaller islands placed 

 at each extremity of the atoll. We need only look at the charts and follow 

 the gradual junction of the two islands of Hanimadu now connected by a 

 low narrow sand spit, or those of Filadu or of Baura and Kelai or Noliwang 

 Faro, and pass to such an island as Kuludu Faro, which occupies fully one 

 half of the faro flat, to Komangdu and finally to Nuriwari, each occupying 

 a gradually greater part of the reef flat rim till the island occupies the 

 whole, and appears as a circular or elliptical island steep to, surrounded by 

 an insignificant fringing reef flat ! 



Miladummadulu. 



Plates 1, 2,3; Sn, figs. 4, 5, 7 ; 34, fig. 2 ; 35-44 > 79, fig. 3. 



The southern part of Karema, the southernmost island on the south face 

 of Miladummadulu, is wasting away; many of the trees and bushes are well 



