he Pacific. You must fancy yourself in the
middle of the great ocean, and you will perceive that there is an almost
circular island, with a low beach, which is formed entirely of coral
sand; growing upon that beach you have vegetation, which takes, of
course, the shape of the circular land; and then, in the interior of the
circle, there is a pool of water, which is not very deep--probably in
this case not more than eight or nine fathoms--and which forms a strange
and beautiful contrast to the deep blue water outside. This circular
island, or atoll, with a lagoon in the middle, is not a complete circle;
upon one side of it there is a break, exactly like the entrance into a
dock; and, as a matter of course, these circular islets, or atolls, form
most efficient break-waters, for if you can only get inside your ship is
in perfect safety, with admirable anchorage in the interior. If the ship
were lying within a mile of that beach, the water would be one or
two thousand feet deep; therefore, a section of that atoll, with the
soundings as deep as this all round, would give you the notion of a
great cone, cut off at the top, and with a shallow cup in the middle of
it. Now, what a very singular fact this is, that we should have rising
from the bottom of the deep ocean a great pyramid, beside which all
human pyramids sink into the most utter insignificance! These singular
coral limestone structures are very beautiful, especially when crowned
with cocoa-nut trees. There you see the long line of land, covered with
vegetation--cocoa-nut trees--and you have the sea upon the inner and
outer sides, with a vessel very comfortably riding at anchor. That is
one of the remarkable forms of reef in the Pacific. Another is a sort of
half-way house, between the atoll and the fringing reef; it is what is
called an "encircling reef." In this case you see an Island rising out
of the sea, and at two or three miles distance, or more, and separated
by a deep channel, which may be eight to twelve fathoms deep, there is a
reef, which encircles it like a great girdle; and outside that again the
water is one or two thousand feet deep. I spent three or four years
of my life in cruising about a modification of one of these encircling
reefs, called a "barrier reef," upon the east coast of Australia--one of
the most wonderful accumulations of coral rock in the world. It is about
1,100 miles long, and varies in width from one or two to many miles.
It is separa