Atoll

“ The great breakers of the ocean were now far up on our beach at each end of the tide. The whole width of the land from the edge of the beach to the lagoon is but the length of four or five cocoanut-trees. The water below the atoll was forced up through the coral sand, Monsieur, until it was like the dough of the baker when he first pours in the cocoanut juice. People still on the ground went up to their arms in it. We feared the atoll would be taken back to the depths. Our platform was nearer the lagoon than the moat—to be exact, two hundred feet from the moat, and a hundred from the lagoon. ”

“ When we remember that the atoll is a living thing, an organic whole, as full of life, though not so highly organised, as a tortoise, the meanest imagination must be struck with the immensity of one of the structures. ”

“ Very near must palms be to be seen from the low deck of a schooner, and, slowly as the Uncle Toby sailed, she quickly raised the low land above the sea, while more palms increased the definition of the atoll circle.
“She's a beauty,” the mate remarked. “A perfect circle.... Looks as if it might be eight or nine miles across.... Wonder if there's an entrance to the lagoon.... Who knows? Maybe it's a brand new find.”
They coasted up the west side of the atoll, making short tacks in to the surf-pounded coral rock and out again. ”

“ We can easily see how an island fronted only on one side, or on one side with one end or both ends encircled by barrier-reefs, might after long-continued subsidence be converted either into a single wall-like reef, or into an atoll with a great straight spur projecting from it, or into two or three atolls tied together by straight reefs—all of which exceptional cases actually occur. ”

“ There are atoll-islands where ships can enter, through some break in the ring, into the inner circle. They find themselves in a perfect harbor, in a sheltered lake which no wave can ever enter, yet deep enough and wide enough to hold all the navies of the world. Round about on every side there are the dazzling beaches which are composed of coral sand, and crowning these there is the peaceful cocoanut-palm, and a lower jungle of dense tropical vegetation. On landing and exploring the woods and shores, nothing can be seen but coral. The whole island is a ring of this purely marine product ”

“ Some of the atolls, in the larger archipelagoes, stand so near to each other, and have such an evident relationship in form, that they compose little sub-groups: in the Caroline Archipelago, one such sub-group consists of Pouynipete, a lofty island encircled by a barrier-reef, and separated by a channel only four miles and a half wide from Andeema atoll, with a second atoll a little further off. In all these respects an examination of a series of charts will show how perfectly groups of atolls resemble groups of common islands. ”

“ The southern group consists of seven or eight islands and islets on the atoll, which is the skeleton of what some day, according to the history of coral reefs, will be a continuous island. North Keeling has no harbor, is seldom visited, and is of no importance. ”

“ In other respects they seem to be a very healthy people.
We crossed the narrow strip of land—only a few hundred yards wide—on which lies the settlement, and then found ourselves on the margin of an extensive lagoon, on the smooth sandy beach of which outrigger canoes in great numbers were hauled up. The island is an irregular atoll, that portion on which we were being continuous for about three-fifths of the circle, while the remaining portion was made up by a straggling chain of islets. ”

“ The atoll presents some very remarkable geological features. At its N.W. side, close to the reef and as it were growing to it, stand two singular vase-shaped rocks, from 8 to 10 feet in 607height. While their base is bathed by the sea, their upper portions, which are about 20 feet in diameter, present the spectacle of luxuriant grass, brushwood, and one or two fruit-bearing cocoa-nut palms, so that the two crags looked like two gigantic flower-pots attached to the reef. They seem to be all that remains of an island which Ocean had first thrown up, and was now busy wearing away. ”

“ The atoll is not a desirable place for residence, as the ocean during severe storms is liable to break across the narrow strip of land and sweep away whatever may be standing there. Many atolls are uninhabited, and none of them has a large population; cocoa-palms, bread-fruit, and other tropical trees are generally found on the inhabited atolls, and partially or wholly supply the natives with food. In some instances the people support themselves by fishing either in the lagoon or in the ocean outside. ”

“ In no quarter are the atolls so thickly congregated, in none are they so varied in size from the greatest to the least, and in none is navigation so beset with perils, as in that archipelago that we were now to thread. ”

“ He led the way toward the wreck, Floyd and Isbel following.
The coral islands of the Pacific may be roughly divided into two classes: compound islands—that is to say, islands made of solid land and surrounded by a coral ring or breakwater, and simple islands or atolls—that is, simple rings of coral inclosing lagoons.
Then we have occasionally a third variety, an atoll island in whose lagoon one finds several islets. ”

“ Atolls are more or less irregular ring-shaped reefs inclosing a lagoon of quiet water. They usually rise from profound depths; Keeling Atoll, in the Indian Ocean, is a good example. The upper surface of atolls and barrier reefs often peers at separate points above the level of the sea, so as to form low-lying islets. In some cases, the land thus formed is almost co-extensive with the reef, and being clothed with palms and tropical verdure, resembles a beautiful chaplet floating, as it were, in mid-ocean. ”

“ As the reef approaches the surface the corals of the inner area are smothered by silt and starved, and their Submarine Volcanic Peak hard parts are dissolved and scoured away; while those of the circumference, with abundant food supply, nourish and build the ring of the atoll. Atolls may be produced also by the backward drift of sand from either end of a crescentic coral reef or island, the spits uniting in the quiet water of the lee to inclose a lagoon. ”

“ Every island throughout a great part of the Pacific is fringed round each with its coral-reef, and there are hundreds of islands of strange shapes, and of Atolls, as they are called, or ring-islands, which are composed entirely of coral, and of nothing else. ”

“ The atolls are all about the same shape—that is, circular. The land, about a quarter of a mile in width, will sometimes form in such a large circle that it will be impossible to see across the lagoon. ”

“ It is probable that atolls originate in more than one way, some being formed in rising or stationary tracts, others in areas of depression. The important question, from a geographical point of view, is not so much how isolated atolls were formed as whether the great tracts in the Pacific and Indian oceans in which no islands occur except atolls, for instance, the Marshall, Gilbert and Low archipelagoes in the former, and the Laccadives and Maldives in the latter, have been areas of extensive subsidence during the later geological periods. ”

“ By it we are shown that a multitude of insignificant individuals may, by their separate actions carried on without concert, generate a structure imposing by its size and stability. One of these palm-covered atolls standing up out of vast depths in the Pacific, has been slowly built up by coral-polyps, while, through successive small stages, the ocean-bottom has subsided. ”

“ In the morning, being within three miles of the shore, we discovered it to be a long low island, with a white beach, of a pleasant appearance, full of cocoa-nut and other trees, and surrounded with a rock of red coral. We stood along the north-east side of it, within half a mile of the shore; and the savages, as soon as they saw us, made great fires, as we supposed, to alarm the distant inhabitants of the island, and ran along the beach, abreast of the ship, in great numbers, armed in the same manner as the natives of the Islands of Disappointment. ”

“ The smiling island, with its head in the mists and its feet in a sapphire sea still as a painted lake; boats full of flowers, corals, ivories, silken embroideries and unknown fruits; the burnished bodies of diving boys; the odour of spices and sandalwood; the clatter of strange tongues; the dark faces and bright clothes of the invading crowds of natives.
It was a spectacle to enchant the senses. She could not think why so many passengers were scurrying to and fro anxious to be taken ashore. ”

“ Two English vessels are approaching the island. At first the crews do not see it, but as evening draws on, the look-out man in the larger ship gives the signal that he has caught sight of land. “Land ho, land!” passes from mouth to mouth among the sailors. What land can it be? No island, no rock even, is marked on the chart, and the officers gather on deck to look over the darkening sea toward that darker point where the new land lies. ”

“ Its shores are indented every here and there with the loveliest of bays and sounds, forming the most exquisite little harbors to be found anywhere in the world. The climate of the Island, especially its summer climate, is delightful. Such bright, bracing airs as come from the sea on one side, and from the snow-capped mountains of the mainland on the other, are seldom met with on either hemisphere. Given a July day, a pleasant companion or two in a crank little boat, whose oars we use to make silvery interludes in our talk, and I should not envy your sailor on the Bosphorus. ”

“ Bligh, and on the 8th at 10 at night saw land bearing from the W. by S. We had no ground at 110 fathoms. At daylight I bore away and passed round the East end and ran down on the South side of the island. There is a white beach on these parts of the island on which there appears to be tolerable good landing, or better than is usually seen on the islands in these seas, and there is probably anchorage in different places on this side or under the small islands, of which there are several near the principal island, but as I did not hoist out the boats to sound that still remains a doubt. ”

“ In its garden, peeps of the sea are seen, through graceful subtropical foliage, at every turn, and miniature land-locked coves, reached from above by winding steps down the face of the falaise, afford the most perfect of boat harbours and bathing-pools.
Another delightful official residence is allotted to the officer in command of the Dockyard. In his case he is given a miniature archipelago. His tiny islands rise from 20 to 100 feet above the water. On one is his house; another is his garden; chickens and pigs occupy a third, whilst his milch goats live on various small skerries. ”

“ The shore, at that part where our ships lay, is composed of a steep, rugged, coral rock, nine or ten feet high, except where there are two sandy beaches, which have a reef of the same sort of rock extending cross their entrance to the shore, and defending them from the sea. The salt-water lake that is in the centre of the island, is about a mile and a half broad; and round it the land rises like a bank, with a gradual ascent. ”

“ This island, low at one part, is high and mountainous at another. It was late in the afternoon before we had a clear view of its lofty peaked mountain. The island was densely wooded, having a picturesque and verdant appearance. During the morning, which was showery, we slowly coasted along the island, at about four or five miles distant. As the weather cleared up about noon, the scenery gratified the eye with its varied tints, refreshed by the genial showers, and recalled to my memory those gems of the ocean distributed over the Polynesian Archipelago. ”

“ All round the largest is a sand-bank above water, which extends from the foot of the higher land about half a mile into the sea, and may have shoal water from it. We saw on the beach a few natives running along shore, as the ship sailed past. These islands are dangerous to people in the night, on account of the sandy spits which project from them; they were covered with shrubs, and had but few tall trees on them, and the land is but low: the latitude of the large or eastmost island, is 8° 06' north, and longitude 140° 03' east. ”

“ We go across the sands amid piles of seaweed, picking up lovely trophies of the deep in mother-of-pearl and pink shells, until we reach the black wooden torii at the base of the island. What a picturesque entry into the island it is, for we walk through the quaintest and narrowest village street, where the upper stories of the houses nearly meet, and where below, there is that strange medley of the every-day life of a people carried on in full view of the public eye. Up we climb, pass the shops full of shells, corals and marine curiosities, until we reach many winding flights of mossy steps. ”

“ That land may be, as you say, a part of the main shore of the lake, or one of the great islands, Royale, Philippeau or Ponchartrain. Yet we can scarcely be sure that the island we seek is not a large one, just because men have not found it. Who, either white man or red, has ever traveled over all this great lake? The canoes go along the shores, and even the sailing vessels follow their regular courses. No man knows what may lie in the center of these waters. ”