104 COKALS AND CORAL ISLANDS. 



side, the safe reef is attached to the coast and is a fringing reef. 

 From these examples we perceive the close relation of barrier 

 and fringing reefs. While a reef is sometimes quite incircling, 

 in other instances it is interrupted, or wholly wanting, along 

 certain shores; and occasionally it may be confined to a single 

 point of an island. 



Above Angau lies Nairai ; although a smaller island than 

 Angau, the barrier reef is of greater extent, and stretches off 

 far from the shores. To the eastward of Nairai are Vatu 

 Rera, C/iic/iia, and Naiau, other examples of islands fiinged 

 around with narrow reefs. Lakemba^ a little more to the south- 

 ward, is also incircled with coral ; but on the east side the 

 reef is a distant barrier. In Aiva, immediately south of 

 Lakemba, the same structure is exemplified ; but the coral 

 ring is singularly large for the little spots of land it incloses. 

 The Argo Reef., east of Lakemba, is a still larger barrier, in- 

 circling two points of rock called Bacon's Isles. It is actually 

 a large lagoon island, twenty miles long, with some coral islets 

 in the lagoon, and two of basaltic constitution, of which the 

 largest is only a mile in diameter. Aiva and Lakemba are in 

 fact other lagoon islands, in which the rocky islands of the in- 

 terior bear a larger proportion to the whole area. The same 

 view is further illustrated by comparing the Argo reef with 

 Nairai, Angau, or Moala : these cases differ only in the greater 

 or less distance of the reef from the shores and the extent of 

 the inclosed land. 



Passing to the large islands Vanua Levii and Viti Levu, we 

 observe the same peculiarities illustrated on a much grander 

 scale. Along the southern shores of Viti Levu, the coral reef 

 lies close against the coast ; and the same is seen on the east 

 side and north extremity of Vanua Levu. But on the west 

 side of these islands, this reef stretches far off from the land, 

 and in some parts is even twenty-five miles distant, with a 

 broad sea within. This sea, however, is obstructed by reefs, 

 and along the shores there are proper fringing reefs. 



The forms of incircling reefs depend evidently to a great 

 extent on that of the land they inclose. That this is the case 



