124 CORAL-REEFS. 



conversion of an atoll with coral islets on it, into a bare or 

 into a sunken annular reef. Such changes would naturally 

 take place at the periods when the sea rose above its usual 

 limits, during a gale of more than ordinary strength ; and 

 the effects of the two causes would be hardly distinguish- 

 able. In Kotzebue's Voyage there are accounts of islands, 

 both in the Caroline and Marshall Archipelagoes, which 

 have been partly washed away during hurricanes ; and 

 Kadu, the native who was on board one of the Russian 

 vessels, said "he saw the sea at Radack rise to the feet of 

 the cocoa-nut trees; but it was conjured in time." 1 A 

 storm lately entirely swept away two of the Caroline islands, 

 and converted them into shoals ; it partly, also, destroyed 

 two other islands. 2 According to a tradition which was 

 communicated to Capt. Fitzroy, it is believed in the Low 

 Archipelago, that the arrival of the first ship caused a great 

 inundation, which destroyed many lives. Mr. Stutchbury 

 relates, that in 1825, the western side of Chain Atoll, in 

 the same group, was completely devastated by a hurricane, 

 and not less than 300 lives lost : " in this instance it was 

 evident, even to the natives, that the hurricane alone was 

 not sufficient to account for the violent agitation of the 

 ocean/'* 3 That considerable changes have taken place 

 recently in some of the atolls in the Low Archipelago, 

 appears certain from the case already given of Matilda 

 Island : with respect to Whitsunday and Gloucester Islands 

 in this same group, we must either attribute great inaccuracy 

 to their discoverer, the famous circumnavigator Wallis, or 

 believe that they have undergone a considerable change in 

 the period of fifty-nine years, between his voyage and that 



1 Kotzebue's First Voyage, vol. iii. p. 168. 



2 M. Desmoulins in Comptes Rendus, 1840, p. %^J. 

 8 West of England Journ.il. No. I, p. 35. 



