130 
THEORY OF THE FORMATION 
Cn. V. 
two other islands. 1 According to a tradition 'which was 
communicated to Captain FitzRoy, it is believed in the 
Low Archipelago that the arrival of the first ship caused 
a great inundation which destroyed many lives. Mr. 
Stutchbury relates that in 1825, the western side of 
Chain Atoll in the same group, was completely de- 
vastated by a hurricane, and not less than 300 lives 
lost : ‘ in this instance it was evident, even to the 
natives, that the hurricane alone was not sufficient to 
account for the violent agitation of the ocean.’ 2 That 
considerable changes have taken place recently in some 
of the atolls in the Low Archipelago, appears certain 
from the case of Matilda Island given in the last chapter. 
With respect to Whitsunday and Gloucester Islands in 
this same group, we must either attribute great inac- 
curacy to their discoverer, the famous circumnavigator 
Wallis, or believe that they have undergone a consider- 
able change in the period of fifty-nine years between his 
voyage and that of Captain Beechey. Whitsunday 
Island is described by Wallis as £ about four miles long, 
and three wide,’ now it is only one mile and a-half 
long. The appearance of Gloucester Island, in Captain 
Beechey’s words, 3 ‘ has been accurately described by its 
discoverer, but its present form and extent differ mate- 
rially.’ Blenheim reef in the Chagos group, consists of a 
water-washed annular reef thirteen miles in circumfer- 
ence, surrounding a lagoon ten fathoms deep ; onitssur- 
1 M. Desmoulins in Comptes Rendus, 1840, p. 837. 
2 West of England Journal, No. 1, p 35. 
3 Beecliey’s Voyage to the Pacific, chap, vii., and Wallis’s Voyaga 
in the Dolphin, chap. iv. 
