CORAL REEFS 541 



Some of the direct and indirect benefits derived by the inhabitants 

 from coral or coral-fringed islands are as follows : 



a. Coral reefs furnish a platform on which allnvinm is deposited, and 

 hence contribute to the lateral extension of the land. 



1). The reefs protect the land from marine erosion. 



c. They afford a source of lime. 



d. They provide building stone. 



e. Upraised coral formations yield especially fine transported soils, but 

 not good residual soils. 



/. They impound the ground water and thus afford better flows of 

 artesian water from wells bored behind the reefs. 



g. They even may afford protection from hostile craft seeking a land- 

 ing to attack the inhabitants. 



li. In many places they afford an easy line of travel along stretches of 

 coast where there are cliffs and no roads inland. 



i. In and about the reefs at low tide fishermen find all sorts of shell- 

 fish and even ordinary fish in innumerable tidal pools. 



j. To a limited degree they furnish a means of livelihood to collectors 

 of coral specimens for museum and curio purposes. 



Temperament of the Natives 



In the course of the writer's many journeys from island to island and 

 long trips inland he has noted, without being able to explain satisfac- 

 torily, the peculiarity of the primitive music of the peoples of the archi- 

 pelago. It has the same plaintive, almost sad, quality of all Malay and 

 Polynesian music. A musician might explain this more simply and 

 directly, but it has occurred to the writer that this quality is the effect 

 of environment. A people who are continually harassed by typhoons, 

 locusts, earthquakes, plagues, and volcanic eruptions ought to feel sad. 

 Their ignorance of and lack of power to cope with these natural phenom- 

 ena makes them of a mystical turn of mind. Men usually do not laugh 

 at things they can not understand. 



Climate and Sunlight 



The temptation to digress for a few lines on the general subject of the 

 influence of tropical climate and tropical sunlight on man, and more 

 particularly on white men, is too strong to be withstood. The writer 

 realizes that these topics are not strictly connected with geology in just 

 the way in which they are taken up, but some discussion of this subject 

 may not improperly be inserted here. It would take too long and be too 

 entirely out of place to go into this topic exhaustively or even to enu- 



