56 AUSTEALASIA. 



are the cocoanut palms and about thirty other species, the germs of which have 

 drifted with the current from Java, sweeping round by Australia. But numerous 

 alimentary plants, as well as domestic animals and rats, now a formidable scourge, 

 have been introduced by man. Hare, the first colonist, settled on the islands with 

 about a hundred slaves. But at present the archipelago has become one large 

 plantation, whose owner, who is also the governor, employs some five hundred 

 Malays in working his vast palm-groves. All the inhabitants — men, pigs, 

 poultry, and the very crabs — live mainly on cocoanuts. Water, of pluvial origin, 

 is procured from wells, which are sunk in the sands and which rise and fall with 

 the tides. 



Formerly the group was considered a Dutch possession ; but it M^as occupied 

 by the English in 1856, and attached to the government of Ceylon. Since 1886, 

 however, it depends on Singapore. 



Christmas Island. 



The triangular island of Christmas, lying 240 miles south of the coast of 

 Java, appears also to have risen like Keeling from the marine bed. Depths of 

 over 3,000 fathoms have been recorded in the waters flowing between it and 

 Java. But although also covered with cocoanut palms, Christmas is not an atoll. 

 Almost completely encircled by fringing reefs, it is entirely of calcareous 

 coralline origin. Three distinct shore lines at the respective elevations of 40, 

 140, and 170 feet above the present sea-level seem to indicate three succes- 

 sive periods of upheaval. 



Amsterdam and St. Paul. 



Both of these islets, lying in the southern region of the Indian Ocean, about 

 midway between the Cape of Good Hope and Adelaide in South Australia, are 

 masses of eruptive rocks ejected from the abysmal depths and unconnected with 

 any other lands. Neither plants, animals, nor fossils indicate any former 

 connection with the Mascarenhas or Madagascar. Within five miles of St. 

 Paul depths have been recorded of 1,200 fathoms, so precipitous are the sub- 

 marine escarpments. Although only forty-six miles apart, the two islands 

 themselves present great differences in their geological constitution, so that 

 they most probably never at any time formed continuous land. They are 

 considered to belong politically to Great Britain ; nevertheless fishermen from 

 Reunion have often endeavoured to make them French territory, and in 1843 

 a trading company landed some troops to take possession of these waifs in the 

 name of France. 



On his return voyage after the death of Magellan, El Cano passed not far from 

 " a very high island, situated under the thirty-seventh degree of latitude, which 

 seemed uninhabited, without any trees and with a circumference of about six 

 leagues," a description answering very well to the island afterwards named New 

 Amsterdam, or simply Amsterdam. 



