162 



CORALS AND CORAL ISLANDS. 



of verdure are spread out before the eye, and a scene of more 

 interest can scarcely be imagined. The surf, beating loud and 

 heavy along the margin of the reef, presents a strange contrast 

 to the prospect bej^ond, — the white coral beach, the massy 

 foliage of the grove, and the embosomed lake with its tiny 

 islets. The color of the lagoon water is often as blue as the 

 ocean, although but ten or twenty fathoms deep ; yet shades 

 of green and yellow are intermingled, where patches of sand 

 or coral-knolls are near the surface ; and the green is a delicate 

 apple-shade, quite unlike the ordinary muddy tint of shallow 

 waters. 



COKAL ISLAND, OR ATOLL. 



The belt of verdure, though sometimes continuous around 

 the lagoon, is usually broken into islets separated by varying 

 intervals of bare reef ; and through one or more of these in- 

 tervals, a ship-channel often exists opening into the lagoon. 

 The larger coral islands are thus a string of islets along a 

 line of reef. 



These lagoon islands are called atolls, a word of Maldive 

 origin. The king of the Maldives bears the high sounding 

 title of " Ibrahim Sultan, King of the thirteen Atollons and 

 twelve thousand Isles (see page 189); which Capt. W. F. W.- 

 Owen, R. N., says is no exaggeration. 



In the larger atolls, the waters within look like the ocean, 

 and are similarly roughened by the wind, though not to the 



