CHRISTMAS ISLAND (INDIAN OCEAN). 



HISTORY AND PHYSICAL FEATURES. 

 By C. W. Andrews, B.Sc, E.G.S. 



Christmas Island, the subject of the present monograpli, lies in 

 tlie eastern part of the Indian Ocean, in S. lat. 10° 25', E. long. 

 105° 42'. Java, the nearest land, is about 190 miles to the north, 

 while some 900 miles to the south-east is the coast of JS^orth-West 

 Australia. A little to the south of west, at a distance of 550 

 miles, are the two atolls of Cocos and ISTorth Keeling, and 

 to the north of these Grlendinning Shoal. The submarine slopes 

 of the island are very steep, and soundings of upwards of 1,000 

 fathoms occur within two or three miles of the coast : at this 

 depth the bottom was found to consist of globigerina ooze. To the 

 north is Maclear Deep, in which 3,200 fathoms were found, and to 

 the south and south-west is the more extensive Wharton Deep, 

 with upwards of 3,000 fathoms. The island, in fact, forms the 

 summit of a submarine peak, the base of which rises from the low 

 saddle which separates these two abysses, and on the western end 

 of which the Cocos-Keeling Islands are situated. 



The first mention of Christmas Island occurs in a map by Pieter 

 Goos, published in Holland in 1666, in which it is called Moni. 

 In subsequent maps this name and that of Christmas Island are 

 applied to it indifferently, but it is not known by whom the island 

 was discovered and named. The earliest approach to a descriptive 

 account is found in Dampier's " Yoyages " [1]/ in the following 

 passage : — 



''After leaving I^ew Holland, the ship tried to make Cocos, 

 but was driven to a more easterly course, and met nothing 

 of remark till the twenty-eighth day. Then we fell in with a 

 small woody island in lat. 10° 20' S. It was deep-water about 

 the island, and there was no anchoring ; but we sent two canoes 

 ashore, one of them with the carpenters to cut a tree to make 

 another pump ; the other canoe went to search for fresh water, 

 and found a small brook near the south-west point of the island, 

 but there the sea fell on the shore so high that they could not 

 get it off. At noon both the canoes returned on board, and the 



^ The numbers in square brackets refer to the Ust of papers, etc., relating- to 

 Christmas Island given at the ead of the volume. 



