SUVADIVA. 139 



The sea face of the islands on the east face of Suvadiva are flanked by 

 coarse shingle beaches ; they pass, as is usually the case, into finer shingle 

 towards the west, and on the lagoon face the beaches become coral sand 

 beaches. Numerous shingle jetties, passing into sand-bars, run at right 

 angles from the outer edge of the reef flats. They are the first indications 

 of small islets which eventually become covered with scanty vegetation, 

 and become connected at the sea or lagoon faces to form the larger islands 

 reaching nearly across the width of the reef flats. 



The original gaps between the islands or islets vary greatly in width. 

 Sometimes they are not more th.an a few yards wide, or they may be 

 nearly a mile across, their width depending in a great measure upon the 

 exposure of the faces of the reef flats to the prevailing winds, the abundance 

 of corals on their sea slopes to supply the material for the boulder belts, 

 reef rock ledges, and shingle or sand beaches which are to fill the gaps. A 

 shingle bar often rises in the centre of a bay, running parallel to the outer 

 edge, thus forming a shallow lagoon divided into two distinct pools. 



South of Dandu (PI. 75) the sea face of the reef flats are generally 

 lined with boulders and large masses of corals, honeycombed and pitted, 

 remnants of the elevated reef rock, or with smaller masses of corals and 

 coral shingle, forming lanes and jetties extending towards the lagoon. 

 The eastern extremity of the islands, which extend close to the eastern 

 edge of the reef flats, are flanked with masses of boulders or with coarse 

 coral shingle beaches, gradually 

 passing into coral sand beaches 

 towards the west. The passes t 

 between the reef flats, as at Gadu 

 and Gan, are usually flanked by 

 wide reef flats edged with a belt 

 of boulders or of shingle ; the 

 outer shores of the islands are 

 flanked by shingle beaches. A few bars of reef rock crop up on the outer 

 reef flats inside of the boulder belt, with an occasional stretch of beach 

 rock at the base of the shingle or coral sand beaches. 



Gan Channel and the passes between it and Wadu, although partly 



Boat off Gadu. 



