Sect. III. MALDIVA ATOLLS, 49 



In groups of atolls exposed to the trade wind, the 

 ship-channels into the lagoons are almost always 

 situated on the leeward or less exposed side of the reef, 

 and the reef itself is sometimes either wanting there, or 

 is submerged. A strictly analogous, but different, fact 

 may be observed at the Maldiva atolls — namely, that 

 where two atolls stand near together, the breaches in 

 the reef are most numerous on the sides which face each 

 other, and are therefore less exposed to the waves. Thus 

 on the sides of Ari and the two Nillandoo atolls which 

 face S. Male, Phaleedoo, and Moloque atolls, there are 

 seventy-three deep-water channels, and only twenty-five 

 on the outer sides; on the three latter-named atolls there 

 are fifty-six openings on the near side, and only thirty- 

 seven on the outside. It is scarcely possible to attri- 

 bute this difference to any other cause than the some- 

 what different action of the sea on the two sides, which 

 would ensue from the mutual protection afforded 

 by the two rows of atolls. I may here remark that 

 in most cases, the conditions favourable to the greater 

 accumulation of fragments on the reef and to its 

 more perfect continuity on one side of the atoll than 

 on the other, have concurred, but this has not been 

 the case with the Maldivas ; for we have seen that the 

 islets are placed on the eastern or south-eastern sides, 

 whilst the breaches in the reef occur indifferently on 

 any side where protected by an opposite atoll. The reef 

 being more continuous on the outer and more exposed 

 sides of those atolls which stand near each other, accords 

 with the fact, that the reefs of the southern atolls are 



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