CHAPTER III. 
FRINGING OR SHORE REEFS. 
Reefs of Mauritius — Shallow channel within the reef — Its slow 
filling up - Currents of water formed within it — Upraised reefs 
— Narrow fringing -reefs in deep seas — Reefs on the coast of E. 
Africa and of Brazil — Fringing -reefs in very shallow seas, round 
hanks of sediment, and on worn-down islands — Fringing-reefs 
affected by currents of the sea — Coral coating bottom of the sea, 
but not forming reefs. 
Fringing-reefs, or, as they have been called by some 
voyagers, shore-reefs, whether skirting an island or 
part of a continent, at first appear to differ little from 
barrier-reefs, except that they are generally of less 
breadth. As far as the superficies of the actual reef 
is concerned, this is the case ; but the absence of an 
interior deep-water channel, and the close relation in 
their horizontal extension with the probable slope of 
the adjoining land beneath the sea, present essential 
points of difference. 
The reefs which fringe the island of Mauritius offer 
a good example of this class. They extend round its 
whole circumference, with the exception of two or 
three parts 1 where the coast is almost precipitous, and 
1 This fact is stated on the authority of the Officier du Roi, in 
his extremely interesting ‘ Voyage a l’lsle de France,’ undertaken in 
17G8. According to Captain Carmichael (Hooker’s Bot. Misc., vol. ii. 
p. 316), on one part of the coast there is a space of sixteen miles 
without a reef. 
