287 
Little Coco consists of several ridges the highest having an elevation 
of 200 feet. The ridge jungle is much as in the other islands, but the 
level land is more largely composed of a basis of coral-shingle than is 
the case in the other two islands and the undergrowth is not quite so 
dense as in the level land on Great Coco. The coco-nut fringe is quite 
as uniform as in the Great Coco, but there is only one point,—at the head 
of a shallow bay in the middle of the west coast,—where the belt is as 
much as thirty yards wide. During his visit to this island the writer 
was able to cut his way from west to east across the highest ridge; to 
cross in another part along more level and frequently swampy ground ; 
to work through a lagoon that occupies the south-western part of the 
island, and to skirt the whole coast on two different occasions. 
The islands have all the physical features of the Andaman islands 
of the main chain as opposed to those of the Archipelago lying to the 
north-east of Port Blair ; the rocks indeed recall at once those of Ross 
Island and of the shores of Port Blair in South Andaman. They are 
also equally like those foi’ming Diamond Island, off the Arracan coast 
at the mouth of the Bassein river and, as in these localities, are best 
seen at points where the inland ridges end in abrupt headlands or are con¬ 
tinued as long reefs exposed wholly, or in part, at low-tide.* Such reefs 
not infrequently rise into outlying islets. These islets are some distance 
from the main island, and are bare and rocky, or jungle-clad, according 
to size and exposure, those off the west coast being all very bare. The 
bays between the headlands are mo.stly wide and shallow, and are filled 
up, except opposite the mouths of creeks, with an accumulation of coral 
debris that becomes at times banked up, causeway-like, between the shore 
and an outlying island; these causeways are in some instances becoming 
stocked with the mangrove-vegetation of the neighbomfing creeks. 
The floor of these shallow bays is remarkably flat and uniform and 
is, at the sea-edge of the bay where the reef ends, generally rather 
shallower than it is within, so that at low-tide each bay consists of a 
long shallow pool, one to two feet deep, separated from the sea itself by a 
long low bank of exposed coral. The bottom of such a pool is usually 
covered by a close meadow of Gymodocea ciliata, but though this species 
is so common there seems to be no other marine phanerogam present. 
Algce, too, are remarkably inconspicuous, being of small size and very 
* For further notices of the physiography of the islands the reader is referred 
to AlcocJc; Nat. Hist. Reports in Noskyn, Administration Reports of the Marine Survey 
of India 1889-90, pp. 14, 15 ; 1890-91, pp. 11, 12 ; where also notices of the fauna, 
particularly marine, will be found. In Hume; The Islands of the Bay of Bengal iu 
Stray Feathers, vol. ii, pp. HI —119, an account of these islands will also be found ; 
there the ornithology of the group is exhaustively discussed. 
97 
