HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
89 
There are two kinds of these banks of coral; the first consists of rays or vermi¬ 
cular tubes, so fine and compact, that they form a body as hard as stone : it is the 
immediate work of the polypiers. The second does not appear to be the immediate 
work of these animals, as the parts that compose it are irregularly connected, like 
the gres (lapis arenceus), which they resemble in their arrangement; but, being 
caicinable, are of a very different nature. These coral stones appear to be com¬ 
posed of nothing more than very fine caicinable sand and broken shells. They 
are, without doubt, formed by the waves of the sea, which, by beating upon the 
corals and madreporae which it nourishes, reduces them to a very fine sand, whose par¬ 
ticles it then drives on shore; and having cpmented them by means of a certain juice 
which it mixes with them, a very hard stone is formed, that is employed in building. 
The second kind is composed of the first, but it affords a larger portion of lime 
from an equal quantity. The bank of the hospital is almost entirely of the first 
kind: this bank is about eighty fathom wide, and one hundred and forty in length; 
it stretches out between a small arm of the sea to the right, and the port to the left, 
and is about ten feet higher than the sea. The ascent to it, from the port, is by 
an easy slope. Here the forges of the port have been erected. This kind of cape 
is composed of large rocks of quartz, from four to five feet high, which rest on a 
bottom of reddish sand. This sand, or earth, which is of the same nature as that of 
the island, when put in aqua fords, does not produce any ebullition. The bank of 
coral, which is about four or five feet thick, rests immediately upon one of rock. 
The same circumstance is visible at the powder mill, near the hospital. 
-The Isle of Tohneliers is, also, nothing more than a bank of coral and shells, 
about half a league in length, and half a quarter of a league wide. There are at 
Flacq two large plains of this kind, which stretch out to the right and left of the 
port of that name, if it may be allowed that title. These plains are partly covered 
over with a short- grass: there are others, also, near the Great bay, and the Little 
river. It is proper to observe, that these plains are generally overflowed by the 
hurricanes, and several of these banks are perpendicularly cleft. The same circum¬ 
stance is also observable between Port Louis and the Great river. 
Besides these plains or banks of coral, which the sea seems to have formed and 
abandoned, the island is almost entirely surrounded with reefs, which generally 
extend half a league in the sea. At high water they are covered; but when it is 
low, there is not more than a foot and half of water over the whole space which 
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