LECTURE ON CORAL ISLANDS 



" Thus it is that in actual fact each atoll marks the site 

 of a buried island. The coral bed which was once planted 

 around the shores of an old island, when it was green and 

 flourishing, now stands over the departed land, and is 

 inscribed with as truthful a ' Hie jacet ' as any tombstone 

 in a modern graveyard. The Paumotu Archipelago con- 

 tains eighty coral atolls, many of very large size, in an 

 area of two hundred thousand square miles. It is a vast 

 island cemetery, where each atoll is a coral urn ' in me- 

 moriam.' The whole Pacific is scattered over with these 

 simple memorials, and they are among the brightest spots 

 in that desert of waters." 



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