l6o THE CALL OF THE SEA 



Victory of the Coral-Builders <:;> 



(From The Voyage of H. M.S. "Beagle") 



T CAN hardly explain 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 barrier-like beach, the margin of 

 green bushes and tall cocoa-nuts, the solid flat of 

 dead coral-rock, strewed here and there with great 

 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 invincible, all-powerful enemy ; yet we see it 

 resisted, and even conquered, by means which at 

 first seem most weak and inefficient. 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 unrelenting power of the 

 waves. Nor are any periods of repose granted. 

 The long swell caused by the gentle but steady 

 action of the trade-wind, always 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, 



