46 ON CORAL REEFS AND ISLANDS. 



only cutting instruments, — the plants in all but twenty-nine in 

 number, — but a single mineral, — quadrupeds none, with the ex- 

 ception of foreign mice, — fresh water barely enough for house- 

 hold purposes, — no streams, nor mountains, nor hills? How 

 much of the poetry or literature of Europe would be intelligible 

 to persons whose ideas had expanded only to the limits of a coral 

 island; — who had never conceived of a surface of land above 

 half a mile in breadth, — of a slope higher than a beach, — of a 

 change of seasons beyond a variation in the prevalence of rains? 

 What elevation in morals should be expected upon a contracted 

 islet, so readily over-peopled that threatened starvation drives to 

 infanticide, and tends to cultivate the extremest selfishness? As- 

 suredly there is not a more unfavorable spot for moral or intel- 

 lectual development in the wide world than the coral island, with 

 all its beauty of grove and lake. 



These islands are exposed to earthquakes and storms like the 

 continents, and occasionally a devastating wave sweeps across 

 the land. During the heavier gales, the natives sometimes secure 

 their houses by tying them to the cocoanut trees, or to a stake 

 planted for the purpose. A height of ten or twelve feet, the ele- 

 vation of their land, is easily overtopped by the more violent 

 seas ; and great damage is sometimes experienced. The still 

 more extensive earthquake-waves, such as those which have 

 swept up the coast of Spain, Peru, and the Sandwich Islands, 

 would produce a complete deluge over these islands. We were 

 informed by both Gray and Kirby, that effects of this kind had 

 been experienced at the Tarawan Islands ; but the statements 

 were too indefinite to determine whether the results should be at- 

 tributed to storms or to this more violent cause. 



The preceding pages have been occupied with a simple de- 

 scription of the actual condition, structure, and appearances of 

 reefs and reef islands. From this review of their existing fea- 

 tures, we may pass on to the consideration of those agencies by 

 which these features were produced, tracing out the steps in the 

 progress of such formations, and the influence of various causes 

 on their forms and distribution. We may commence with a 

 brief account of the living zoophyte, its habits and its mode of 

 growth, — as some knowledge on these points is essential to the 

 correct appreciation of the discussion before us. This branch of 

 the subject has been treated of at length in another volume, to 

 which reference may be made for fuller details.* 



* Report on Zoophytes, by the author. 



