162 CORALS AND CORAL ISLANDS. 
of verdure are spread out before the eye, and a scene of more 
interest can scarcely be imagined. ‘The surf, beating loud and 
heavy along the margin of the reef, presents a strange contrast 
to the prospect beyond,—the white coral beach, the massy 
foliage of the grove, and the embosomed lake with its tiny 
islets. The color of the lagoon water is often as blue as the 
ocean, although but ten or twenty fathoms deep; yet shades 
of green and yellow are intermingled, where patches of sand 
or coral-knolls are near the surface ; and the green is a delicate 
apple-shade, quite unlike the ordinary muddy tint of shallow 
waters. 










































































































































































































































































































































































CORAL ISLAND, OR ATOLL. 
The belt of verdure, though sometimes continuous around 
the lagoon, is usually broken into islets separated by varying 
intervals of bare reef; and through one or more of these in- 
tervals, a ship-channel often exists opening into the lagoon. 
The larger coral islands are thus a string of islets along a 
line of reef. | 
These lagoon islands are called atolls, a word of Maldive 
origin. The king of the Maldives bears the high sounding 
title of ‘“‘ Ibrahim Sultan, King of the thirteen Atollons and 
twelve thousand Isles (see page 189); 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 similarly roughened by the wind, though not to the 


