164 A CRUISE IN THE LACCADIVE SEA 



During this happy period, in addition to the usual 

 out-turn of ordinary surveying work, eight successful 

 hauls were made in depths of 700 to 1200 fathoms 

 and one in 45 fathoms, about sixty specimens of 

 deep-sea deposit were brought up and roughly 

 analysed, and cursory zoological and botanical ex- 

 plorations were made of numerous reefs and atolls. 



But before I give any account of my zoological 

 observations on land, I must explain that they were 

 the result of a series of short and hurried visits 

 made, often late in the day, in company with survey- 

 officers, whose primary duties were to take sights of 

 the stars or to sketch in a bit of coast-line. In such 

 circumstances it was quite impossible to form any 

 opinion of the structure of the reefs visited : this can 

 only be done by making large collections of growing 

 corals, which demands exact local knowledge, very 

 fine weather, and opportune tides — conditions, in short, 

 that can only be secured by residence. With this 

 limitation of my subject, I may now speak first of 

 the Laccadive Sea, and then of its islands. 



We have been accustomed to give the name 

 Laccadive Sea to the narrow basin included between 

 the Malabar coast on the one side and the peaks or 

 plateaux that lodge the Laccadive Islands on the 

 other. On the Malabar side, its bottom, which con- 

 sists of dark mud brought down by small rivers from 

 the Western Ghats, slopes very, very gently, the 



