252 KEELING ISLAND. 



and the animal always appears languishing and 

 sickly." 



When we arrived at the head of the lagoon, we 

 crossed a narrow islet, and found a great surf 

 breaking on the windward coast. I can hardly ex- 

 plain the reason, but there is, to my mind, much 

 grandeur in the view of the outer shores of these 

 lagoon-islands. There is a simplicity in the bar- 

 rier-like beach, the margin of gi'een bushes and 

 tall cocoa-nuts, the solid flat of dead coral-rock, 

 strewed here and there with gi-eat loose fragments, 

 and the line of furious breakers, all rounding away 

 towards either hand. The ocean, throwing its 

 waters over the broad reef, appears an invdncible, 

 all-powerful enemy ; yet we see it resisted, and 

 even conquered, by means which at first seem most 

 weak and inefiicient. It is not that the ocean spares 

 the rock of coral ; the great fragments scattered 

 over the reef, and heaped on the beach, whence 

 the tall cocoa-nut^ springs, plainly bespeak the un- 

 relenting power of the waves. Nor are any peri- 

 ods of repose gi-anted. The long swell caused by 

 the gentle but steady action of the trade-wind, al- 

 ways blowing in one direction over a wide area, 

 causes breakers, almost equalling in force those 

 during a gale of wind in the temperate regions, 

 and which never cease to rage. It is impossible 

 to behold these waves without feeling a conviction 

 that an island, though built of the hardest rock, let 

 it be porphyry, gi-anite, or quartz, would ultimate- 

 ly yield, and be demolished by such an irresistible 

 power. Yet these low, insignificant coral islets 

 stand and are victorious ; for here another power, 

 as an antagonist, takes part in the contest. The 

 organic forces separate the atoms of carbonate of 

 lime, one by one, from the foaming breakers, and 

 unite them into a symmetrical structure. Let the 



