BOTANY OF THE LACCADIVES. 269 



the most easterly of which lies 120 miles to the westward of the 

 Malabar Coast, while the most southerly is about the same distance 

 to the north of the Maldive Archipelago. Between the Laccadive 

 and the Maldive Archipelagos lies the island of Minikoi in Lat. 8° 30' 

 N., and Lon, 72° 40' E. This island is sometimes spoken of as being 

 one of the Maldives, owing to the fact of its being rather nearer to 

 that Archipelago than to the Laccadives, and because its population 

 is Maldive in language and in manners ; usually, however, it is 

 treated, as it will be in this paper, as a Laccadive Island, because its 

 political allegiance has always, within historical times, been with the 

 latter group. In reality, however, it cannot be precisely looked on 

 as a member of either group, though being one of the atoll-crowned 

 submarine peaks characteristic of the two archipelagos, it is clearly 

 a link in the chain to which both belong. It was at one time 

 supposed that the atolls of this chain were situated on a bank 

 separated from the nearest mainland (the coast of Malabar) by 

 an ocean trough.* This is now found to be incorrect, and the 

 islands form in reality " a chain of peaks rising from a bed of 1,100 

 *' fathoms, or are in themselves 6,600 feet above the bottom, 

 " a height somewhat similar to that of the Western Ghats in those 

 " latitudes.^'t 



The chief references to the Laccadive Archipelago are enume- 

 rated below : — 



W. Hamilton. — Article ** Laccadives,'* in East India Gazetteer 

 [1815] : a very brief notice of the group. 



J. Wood. — Extract from Lieut. Wood's Private Journal regard- 

 ing the Lakeradeevh Archipelago, in Journ. of the Roy. Geogr. Sac, 

 vol. vi. [1836] : contains a full account of Anderut, and gives in- 

 formation concerning the other members of the group obtained 

 from enquiries made by Lieut. Wood when in Anderut. 



W. Robinson. — Description of the Laccadive Islands, in Madras 

 Journ. of Literature and Science, n. s., vol. xiv. [1847]: contains 

 full accounts of the British Islands of the Archipelago, and is pre- 

 ceded by an interesting and valuable historical preface, unfortunately 



* Hume, " Stray Feathers," vol. iv., p. 459. 



t Carpenter, "Administration Reports of the Marine Survey of India," year 

 1887-88, p. 7 ; year 1888-89, p. 6. 



