MALDIVA ARCHIPELAGO 



507 



surprise at the reefs both of atolls and barriers becomi 

 parts imperfect. The great barrier of 

 New Caledonia is thus imperfect and 

 broken in many parts ; hence, 

 after long subsidence, this great 

 reef would not produce one 

 great atoll 400 miles in length, 

 but a chain or archipelago of 

 atolls, of very nearly the same 

 dimensions with those in the Maldiva 

 Archipelago. Moreover, in an atoll once 

 breached on opposite sides, from the likeli- 

 hood of the oceanic and tidal currents 

 passing straight through the breaches, it 

 is extremely improbable that the corals, 

 especially during continued subsidence, 

 would ever be able again to unite the rim ; 

 if they did not, as the whole sank down- 

 wards, one atoll would be divided into two 

 or more. In the Maldiva Archipelago there <^^ 

 are distinct atolls so related to each other 

 in position, and separated by channels 

 either unfathomable or very deep (the 

 channel between Ross and Ari atolls is 

 150 fathoms, and that between the north 

 and south Nillandoo atolls is 200 fathoms 

 in depth), that it is impossible to look at 

 a map of them without believing that they 

 were once more intimately related. And 

 in this same archipelago, Mahlos-Mahdoo 

 atoll is divided by a bifurcating channel 

 from 100 to 132 fathoms in depth, 

 in such a manner, that it is 



ner \\\ 





scarcely possible to say whether it ought strictly to be 



