24 CORAL AND ATOLLS 



Raymond may have been sent to Batavia, lie may have 

 been deported m another whaler — or he may have received 

 his " quietus on the instant " ; in any case he disappears from 

 the history of Cocos-Keeling and John Ross continued his 

 reign undisturbed. 



Besides the whalers and the Beagle other vessels came 

 to the island and brought visitors to Ross Primus from the 

 outer world, for in sailing-ship days Cocos was a comparatively 

 commonly visited place. For many years the Australian 

 horse ships called at the atoll to take on water and fresh 

 provisions, and their visits were fairly regular ; until, as a 

 consequence of the dangers of shipwreck on the barrier, the 

 place was avoided by all boats save those in actual distress. 

 A vast number of vessels have from time to time gone to 

 pieces on the barrier, and the history of the atoll is a history 

 of shipwreck — even the fauna of the place tells a tale of ship- 

 wrecked castaways. 



With the cessation of the journal our knowledge of the 

 doings of Ross Primus practically ends, for the sailing-ship 

 visitors have left no record of the condition of the islands or 

 the story of their ruler. 



In 1842 and 1844 the atoll was visited by Dutch 

 navigators. Mynheer J. J. Duintjer aiid Mynheer J. W, Retgers 

 have made reference to the islands, but the petition to Admiral 

 Capel marks the end of the accurately recorded history of the 

 reign of the first settler in Cocos. 



The remaining years of the life of Ross Primus were 

 devoted to study, and a great deal of philosophic writing fell 

 from the pen of this remarkable man. It is unfortunate that 

 a great part of his writings was destroyed by a disastrous lire 

 which gutted his house and consumed most of his possessions. 



But some fragments remain, and one, a criticism on 

 Darwin's essay on Coral Reefs, was published in the year after 

 his death in the Natuurkundig Tijdschrift voor Nedcrlandsch 

 Indie (deel. viii., Batavia, 1855). By a curious mistake this 

 work is credited in the Royal Society's Catalogue of Scientific 

 Papers to Sir J. C. Ross, the Arctic explorer, and, in the 



