THE LACCADIVES AND THE WEST COAST. 439 
ground westward into the lagoon, which latter seems to be 
simultaneously shallowing. This is conspicuously the case at 
Kiltan, where the island is said to gain about a yard in breadth 
yearly, and where the lagoon is now too shallow to admit the 
larger boats except at high water. 
At Amini, and Underoo it is said, (non-vidi) the process has 
progressed a stage further: there are no lagoons so to speak, only 
a barrier reef nearly all round the islands, and so close to them 
that it seems likely soon to become a fringing reef. Aucuttee, 
however, presents a different structure as both it, and its two 
little satellite islands, Bingaroo and Tingaroo, are inside a huge 
lagoon formed by a separate barrier reef. 
“In most of the islands the substructure appears to be as 
follows :—A thicker or thinner film of humus; then dry sand 
varying from two to six feet in thickness ; then coarse coral 
rock from one to two or three feet in thickness ; and then below 
this, several feet of damp sand into which the people have only 
to pierce in order to procure fairly good, but somewhat 
brackish, water. Wells and small tanks thus constructed a- 
bound everywhere, the water in them, however, rising and falling 
a little with the tide, showing that the salt and fresh water are 
somewhere in contact in the more or less porous body of the 
reef, and that the imcreased pressure of the high tide raises 
somewhat the superficial fresh water supply. 
The main staple of produce of all the islands is the Cocoanut. 
The nut itself is one of their principal articles of food, and they 
export largely the coir or fibre derived from the husk of the 
nut, the nuts themselves, and to a smaller extent, the Khopri or 
dried kernels, to the mainland. The produce of the British 
islands is taken to Mangalore, while that of the other islands, 
chiefly goes to Cannanore. 
The Cocoanut trees grow easily and require little care even 
at the first. There are said to be about 50 000 trees in full 
bearing in Amini, some 6,000 in Cardamum, 20,000 in Kiltan, 
and 15,000 in Chitlac. These four islands supply to Mangalore 
about 170. tons of coir and six or seven hundred thousand Co- 
coanuts annually, besides a quantity of limes ; a number of small 
cowries which, as is well known, pass as a circulating medium 
amongst the poorer classes throughout India ; a few tortoise- 
shells and vinegar and jaggery pots. 
No exact information is available as to the outturn of 
the islands now managed by the Rajah of Cannanore (which 
ageregate an area of about eight square miles, with a popu- 
lation of some 5,500 to 6,000 inhabitants), but it is similar 
in almost every respect to that from the British Islands, 
and probably about equal in quantity. In one point only 
Hd 
