324 E. T. Doane on the Atoll of Ebon. 
green grass which covers them—and the deep shade of the in- 
terlaced bushes and majestically tall bread-fruit trees, throwing 
out their long sweeping arms like the monarch oak— 
—“ Who has ruled in the green wood long.” 
In the growth of some of these islets, we have perhaps some 
interesting facts connected with the rate of growth of islets or 
coral reefs. Bikri is an islet containing not more than an acre of 
land. A few Pandanus self:sown from seed washed there by 
the waters of the lagoon or sea, have taken root. And there are 
a few bushes,—a variety which I have noticed as growing only 
on the frontier soil of an islet—soil which is but little more than 
sand. From the leaves of these bushes and Pandanus, soil is 
very slowly forming. But the present age of the islet is, as stated 
by ‘a native, who saw it when only a sand bank washed by the 
tides—some thirty-five years. He remembers it when a boy as 
only a sand bank. Now it has.a /itile soil and few bushes. The 
islet Nanming he describes as once only a sand bank. It is now 
about the same size and condition as Bikri. These facts are 
not stated of course as definite for determining the rate of growth 
of coral is/ets—for into such a calculation many other circum- 
stances might enter, such as the position of the reef for catching 
and holding the washed-up matter, &c. t we may learn from 
the facts here given, that the growth of land, like the growth of 
the reef-rock, 1s very slow. 
Oakey to have been the case with the growth of the islet of 
bon. There are several spots which may be indicated as 
the welding points of small islets. These places are usually nar- 
rower, and less overgrown with bushes and trees, and possess a 
thinner soil than other parts of the whole islet. Then again 
there are places which are expanded, just as if they had been the 
central nucleii of the islets. These are heavily wooded—have 
large bread-fruit trees and other trees of apparently an old age, 
growing upon them. We have reason to paige that ail the 
islets of this atoll will in time be thus united, and thus the 
