2G0 
APPENDIX. 
guisli on tlie chart from reefs, I have not coloured the upper 
part red. Towards the mouth, however, where the water is 
rather deeper, tlie islands of Ormuz and Larrack, appear 
so regularly fringed, that I have coloured them red. There 
are certainly no atolls in the Persian Gulf. The shores of 
Immaum, and of the promontory forming the southern head- 
land of the Persian Gulf, seem to be without reefs. The 
whole S.W. part of Arabia Felix, except one or two small 
patches, and tlie shores of Socotra appear from the charts 
and the memoir of Captain Haines (Geograph. Journ. 1839, 
p. 125) to be without reefs. I believe there are no exten- 
sive coral-reefs on any part of the coasts of India, except on 
the low promontory of Madura (as already mentioned) in 
front of Ceylon. 
Bed Sea. — My information is chiefly derived from the 
admirable charts published by the East India Company in 
1836, from personal communication with Captain Moresby, 
one of the surveyors, and from the excellent memoir, 
‘ Ueber die Natur der Corallen-Bankendes Rothen Meeres,’ 
by Ekrenberg. The plains immediately bordering the Red 
Sea seem to consist chiefly of a sedimentary formation of 
the newer tertiary period. The shore is, with the exception 
of a few parts, fringed by coral-reefs. The water is gener- 
ally profoundly deep close to the shore ; but this fact, which 
has attracted the attention of most voyagers, seems to have 
no necessary connection with the presence of reefs ; for 
Captain Moresby particularly observed that, in lat. 24° 10' 
on the eastern side, there is a piece of coast with very deep 
water close to it, without any reefs, but not differing in any 
other respect from the usual coast line. The most remark- 
able feature in the Red Sea is the chain of submerged banks, 
reefs, and islands lying some way from the shore, chiefly on 
tlie eastern side ; the space within being deep enough to 
admit safe navigation in small vessels. Tlie banks are 
generally of an oval form, and some miles in width ; but 
