STRUCTURE OF CORAL ISLANDS. 



131 



title of " Ihraliim Sultan, King of the thirteen Atollons and 

 twelve thousand Isles" (see page 153); which Capt. W. F. W. 

 Owen, R.N., says is no exaggeration. 



In the larger atolls, the waters within look like the ocean, 

 and are siaiilarly roughened by the wind, though not to the 

 same extent. Standing on the north shore of the Raraka 

 lagoon and looking south-west, nothing is seen but blue waters. 

 Far in the distance to the right, and also to the left, a few 

 faint dots are observed ; and as the eye sweeps around in 

 either direction, these dots gradually enlarge and pass into lines 

 of verdure, and, finally, distinct groves near the observer. At 

 Dean's Island, another of the Paumotus, and at some of the 

 Carolines, the resemblance to the ocean is still more striking. 



CORAL ISLAND, OR ATOLL. 



The lagoon is in fact but a fragment of the ocean cut off by 

 more or less perfect walls of coral reef-rock ; and the reef 

 is here and there surmounted by verdure, forming a series 

 of islets. 



In many of the smaller coral islands, the lagoon has lost 

 its ocean character, and become a shallow lake, and the green 

 islets of the margin have coalesced in some instances into a 

 continous line of foliage. Traces may perhaps be still detected 

 of the passage, or passages, over which the sea once com- 

 municated with the internal waters, though mostly concealed 

 by the trees and shrubbery which have spread around and 

 completed the belt of verdure. The coral island is now in its 



K 2 



