CORAL REEFS. 223 



(which were all furnished gratis, from the dock-yard at Plymouth) were 

 excellent, and ingeniously managed ; and though a rope or two broke, 

 and a link of one of the chains tore away a small piece of an angle of the 

 rock, which was thrown with much velocity into the sea, yet the rock 

 was safely supported by its complicated tackling, and stands once more 

 in precisely its former position ! Lieutenant Goldsmith, who threw it 

 down, was the engineer in replacing it; and, in the opinion of many of 

 the gentlemen of this town and neighbourhood, he has, by his skill and 

 personal labor and attention, in some degree wiped away the disgrace to 

 which he was exposed by throwing it down. 



THE CORAL REEFS AND ISLANDS OF AUSTRALASIA 

 AND POLYNESIA. 



Throughout the whole .range of the Polynesian and Australasian 

 Islands, there is scarcely a league of sea unoccupied by a coral reef, or a 

 coral island ; the former springing up to the surface of the water, per- 

 pendicularly from the fathomless bottom, "deeper than did ever plummet 

 sound," and the latter in various stages, from the low and naked rock, 

 with the water rippling over it, to an uninterrupted forest of tall trees. 

 *' I have seen," says Dalrymple, in his inquiry into the formation of 

 islands, " the coral banks in all their stages ; some in deep water; others 

 with a few rocks appearing above the surface; some just formed into 

 islands, without the least appearance of vegetation; others with a few 

 weeds on the highest part; and lastly, such as are covered with large 

 timber, with a bottomless sea, at a pistol-shot distance." In fact, as 

 soon as the edge of the reef is high enough to lay hold of the floating sea- 

 wreck, or for a bird to perch upon, the island may be said to commence. 

 The dung of birds, feathers, wreck of all kinds, cocoa-nuts floating with 

 the young plant out of the shell, are the first rudiments of the new 

 island. With islands thus formed, and others in the several stages of 

 their progressive creation, Torres' Strait is nearly choked up; and 

 Captain Flinders mentions one island in it covered with the Casuarina, 

 and a variety of other trees and shrubs, which give food to paroquets, 

 pigeons, and other birds, to whose ancestors, it is probable, the island 

 was originally indebted for this vegetation. The time will come it may 

 be ten thousand, or ten millions of years, but come it must when New 

 Holland, and New Guinea, and all the little groups of islets, and reefs, 

 to the north and north-west of them will either be united in one 



