PAUMATO GROUP. 63 



formation, with an extensive lagoon* in the centre, and is 

 encircled by reefs and rocks, against which the surf heats 

 with great violence. At 5 A. M., tried the current, and 

 found it setting north-west-by-west half-west, one fathom per 

 hour. Wishing to survey the island, we "lay-to" during the 

 night. 



August 14th and 15th. At early daylight made all sail and 

 stood for the island we discovered yesterday, and by 10 A. M. 

 were so near it that we -could distinguish with the naked eye 

 the natives standing on the beach. These savages walked 

 about in groups, and appeared to be armed. At 11 A. M., 

 we proceeded with the rest of the squadron to take our station 

 for surveying. In the afternoon several of the " Vincennes" 

 •boats effected a landing, but were not very courteously received 

 by the natives. They assembled in considerable numbers on 

 the beach, and commanded our people to return to the ships. 



double raised lines running round the margins ; other patches are crossed by similar 

 linos traversing them in various directions. Gradually the light color of the patches 

 becomes darker, the bright yellow which was visible at a distance changes to brown, 

 and the bluish-gray of the lepraides becomes a dusty black. The edges of neighbor- 

 ing patches approach and run into each other; and on the dark ground thus formed 

 there appear other lichens of circular shape, and dazzling whiteness. Thus, an or- 

 ganic film or covering, establishes itself by successive layers, and, as mankind in 

 forming settled communities, pass through different stages of civilization, so is the 

 gradual propagation and extension of plants connected with determinate physical 

 laws. — Humboldt. 



According -to another high authority, (Charles Darwin,) the process of formation 

 is the following :— He supposes a mountainous island, surrounded by a coral reef, (a 

 fringing reef attached to the shore,) to undergo subsidence ; the fringing reef which 

 subsides with the island is continually restored to its level by the tendency of the 

 eoral-animals to regain the surface of the sea, and becomes thus, as the island gradu- 

 ally sinks and is reduced in size, first, an "encircling reef," at some distance from 

 the included islet, and subsequently when the latter has entirely disappeared, an 

 atoll. According to this view, in which islands are regarded as the calumniating 

 points of a submerged land, the relative positions of the different coral-islands would 

 disclose to us that which we could hardly learn by the sounding-line, concerning 

 the configuration of the land, which was above the surface of the sea at an earlier 

 epoch. 



* Lagoon, is the Spanish word for Lake. 



