THE AFTER-HISTORY OF THE ATOLL 267 



Ridges of sand will be thrown across the islands, and will 

 rise in the lee of any prominent boulder, and stretch away 

 from it on the line of prevalent wind. In time, the general 

 surface of the land becomes raised as a whole until, in the 

 case of the windward islands, there is no trace to be seen of 

 the original low coral debris-pile that forms their foundations. 

 The leeward islands will remain long unclothed by sand, and 

 when the Avindward islands are already covered and thickly 

 vegetated, the leeward islets will still be mere piles of broken 

 coral. Some islands are built almost entirely of sand by the 

 agency of the wind, and then they may attain a height of 

 some 30 feet as pure sand -heaps; when this is the case, the 

 highest land is on the leeward side, as we have already seen 

 in the description of the islands of this atoll. I think that the 

 importance of Avind building, in the after-history of the islands, 

 is generally rather neglected, but the reality of it may be 

 appreciated by observing that all of the older trees of the 

 windward islands are buried for a very considerable distance 

 by the sand that has been accumulated during their lifetime. 

 The principle which is involved in this completing of the island 

 characters is one that is of general application, for upon the 

 western bank of the Nile in Nubia I have watched every stage 

 of land-making under the influence of wind-blown sand. Here, 

 where the sand from the Western Desert is for ever blowing 

 over the granite land of the Nile valley, I have watched all 

 the details of ridge-formation, the burial of boulders, and the 

 general elevation of land-level, such as I had already noted in 

 this atoll. The arrival of sea-cast seeds is the next event in 

 the island history, and of all the coral island vegetation the 

 coconut is the pioneer. Although Dana says that " there is 

 no known evidence that any island never inhabited has been 

 found supplied with coconut trees," still it is a fact that 

 coconuts have been noted on this atoll ever since its discovery 

 in the early part of the seventeenth century, and there is no 

 evidence of any inhabitants being in the islands previous to 

 1825. 



The coconut owes its success as a pioneer to the fact that 



