“ The shore terrace descends by a steep cliff to the sea, forming the “rise” of a submarine “tread” in the form of fringing reef which surrounds the island and is never uncovered, even at low water, except in Flying Fish Cove, where the only landing-place exists. The central plateau is a plain whose surface presents “rounded, flat-topped hills and low ridges and reefs of limestone,” with narrow intervening valleys. ”

“ It is probably the only tropical island that had never been inhabited by man before the European settlement. When the first settlers arrived, in 1897, it was covered with a dense forest of great trees and luxuriant under-shrubbery. The settlement in Flying Fish Cove now numbers some 250 inhabitants, consisting of Europeans, Sikhs, Malays and Chinese, by whom roads have been cut and patches of cleared ground cultivated.
The island is the flat summit of a submarine mountain more than 15,000 ft. ”

“ The occurrence of such a series of Tertiary deposits appears to be unknown elsewhere. The whole series was evidently deposited in shallow water on the summit of a submarine volcano standing in its present isolation, and round which the ocean floor has probably altered but a few hundred feet since the Eocene age. Thus although the rocks of the southern coast of Java in their general character and succession resemble those of Christmas Island, there lies between them an abysmal trough 18,000 ft. ”