250 APPENDIX. 



sand-banks, which are difficult tc distinguish on the chart from 

 reefs, I have not coloured the upper part red. Towards the 

 mouth, however, where the water is rather deeper, the islands 

 of Ormuz and Larrack, appear so regularly fringed, that I 

 have coloured them red. There are certainly no atolls in the 

 Persian Gulf. The shores of Inimaum, and of the promontory 

 forming the southern headland of the Persian Gulf, seem to be 

 without reefs. The whole S.W. part of Arabia Felix, except 

 one or two small patches, and the shores of Socotra appear 

 from the charts and the memoir of Captain Haines (Geograph. 

 Journ. 1839, p. 125) to be without reefs. I believe there are 

 no extensive coral-reefs on any part of the coasts of India, ex- 

 cept on the low promontory of Madura (as already mentioned) 

 in front of Ceylon. 



Eed Sea. — My information is chiefly derived from the 

 admirable charts published by the East India Company in 

 1836, from personal communication with Captain Moresby, one 

 of the surveyors, and from the excellent memoir, ' Ueber die 

 Natur der Corallen-Banken des Eothen Meeres,' by Ehren- 

 berg. The plains immediately bordering the Red Sea seem 

 to consist chiefly of a sedimentary formation of the newer ter- 

 tiary period. The shore is, with the exception of a few parts, 

 fringed by coral-reefs. The water is generally profoundly 

 deep close to the shore ; but this fact, which has attracted the 

 attention of most voyagers, seems to have no necessary connec- 

 tion with the presence of reefs ; for Captain Moresby particu- 

 larly observed that, in lat. 24° 10' on the eastern side, there is 

 a piece of coast with very deep water close to it, without any 

 reefs, but not differing in any other respect from the usual 

 coast line. The most remarkable feature in the Red Sea is 

 the chain of submerged banks, reefs, and islands, lying some 

 way from the shore, chiefly on the eastern side ; the space 

 within being deep enough to admit safe navigation in small 

 vessels. The banks are generally of an oval form, and some 

 miles in width ; but some of them are very long in proportion 



