t 395 3 
them with violence. Bat theN.E. winds, tumbling 
in the billows from a wide ocean, heap up the coral 
with which thofe Teas are filled. This, • obvious 
after dorms, is perhaps, at all other times, im- 
perceptibly effected. 
The coral banks, raifed in the fame manner, be- 
come dry. Thefe banks are found of all depths-, 
a't all didances from fhore, entirely unconne&ed 
with the land, and detached from each other : 
although it often happens they are divided by a 
narrow gut, without bottom. 
Coral banks alfogrow, by a quick progrefiion, to- 
wards the furface ; but the winds, heaping up the coral 
from deeper water, chiefly accelerate the forma- 
tion of thefe into fhoals and iflands. They become 
gradually fhallower ; and, when once the fca meets 
with refiftance, the coral is quickly thrown up by 
the force of the waves breaking againft the bank} 
and hence it is that, in the open fea, there is fcarce 
an inffance of a coral bank having fo little water, 
that a large fhip cannot pafs over, but it is alfo fo 
fhallow that a boat would ground on it. 
I have feen thefe coral banks in all the ftages j 
fome in deep water, others with few rocks appear- 
ing above the furface, fome juft formed into iflands, 
without the lead appearance of vegetation, and others, 
from fuch as have a few weeds on the higheft part, 
to thofe which are covered with large timber, with 
a bottomlefs fea, at a piftol fhot diftance. 
The loofe coral, rolled inward by the billows in 
lage pieces, will ground, and the reflux being un- 
able to carry them away, they become a bar to co- 
agulate the fanch always found intermixed with 
E e e 2 coral } 
