22 



A NATUIt A LIST'S WAi^DERINGS 



my visit I had no very calm daya ; but in the still waters of 

 the lagfwn there was enough to ot'cupy the busiest pair of eyes 

 for weeks. 



The wonderful display of colour seen in the placid water of a 

 lagnon has been often described ; but it can give to one, who 

 has not himself visited a conil reel", but a very slight idea of 

 the fairy Ixtwere to Ije seen from over the side of a boat 

 gliding gently across the surface of snch a marine lake. 



I carefully cxiunined that part of the lagoon over which tho 

 poisoned water ha<l spread, on a day >vhen the water was so 

 calm that I could see the minutest objects on the bottom, It^ 

 whole eastern htilf was one vast field tif blackened and lifeless 

 coral stems, and of the vacant and lustreless shells of giant 

 clams and other Slollusca, paralysed and killed in all stages 

 of expansion. Everywhere both shells and coral wore deeply 

 corroded, the coml especially being in many places worn down 

 to the s<did base. Since the catastrophe, there had been, till 

 almost the date of my visits no sign of life in that portion of 

 the lagoon; I saw very lew fishes, and only here and there 

 a new branch of Madrejiara and Pontes. I fonn<l only one 

 tridaena alive (its three years' growth being 12 inches in 

 length, and 13 in breadth). 



That an earthquake certainly occurred on this reef, as 

 recorded by Mr. Darwin, two years before the visit of the 

 Bmfjh, is an interesting foet. I'hat an earthquake took place 

 in 187(), cannot, 1 think, judging Irom the tidal wave, bo 

 doubted, although no tremor was detected by any one on the 

 island — scarcely to be wondered at during the war of the 

 elements. The wave, as well as the darkene<l water which 

 issued, doubtless from a submarine rent, was almost certainly 

 the result of volcanic disturbance in the close vicinity of tho 

 attjll. Mr. Darwin has described a dead field of coral observed 

 by him, in the upper and south-east part, and has accounted 

 for it by asstiniiug, from information given him by 5Ir. Leisk, 

 that S.E, island had been at one time divided into several 

 islets by channels, whose closing up had pi-evented the water 

 from rising so high in the lagoon as formerly; and that, 

 therefore, the corals, which had attained their utmost possible 

 limit of upward growth, must have been killed by occasional 

 exposure to the snn. 



