Coral island

“ I was much struck with this fact, when viewing, from the heights of Tahiti, the distant island of Eimeo standing within smooth water, and encircled by a ring of snow-white breakers. Remove the central land, and an annular reef like that of an atoll in an early stage of its formation is left; remove it from Bolabola, and there remains a circle of linear coral-islets, crowned with tall cocoa-nut trees, like one of the many atolls scattered over the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
The barrier-reefs of Australia and of New Caledonia deserve a separate notice from their great dimensions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The meridian sun was pouring down its fiercest rays, and he was thinking of returning to his tent and the grateful shade of the palm-trees, when, just as he had rounded the jagged spur of a particularly ugly-looking coral reef, he suddenly saw before him a deep, dark line of perfectly smooth water, over-arched by a natural bridge of grayish-white limestone, and flowing, as it seemed to him, directly under the island. ”

“ These animals cannot exist at a greater depth in the sea than about ten fathoms, and as the Coral Islands often rise with great steepness from a sea more than three hundred fathoms deep, it would seem that a great alteration must have taken place in the depth of the ocean since the time when these little architects commenced their labours. Throughout the whole range of the Polynesian and Australasian islands, there is scarcely a league of sea unoccupied by a coral reef, or a coral island ”

“ It is every where bounded on the sea-side, by a bank of coral, that protects it from the violence of the ocean. This bank generally extends but a short distance from the shore, when it goes off into unfathomable water. At the chief's islet, where we buried the surgeon, it was wider than at any other place about the group, being upwards of a cable's length, which, for a low coral island, may be considered good anchorage. ”

“ Mr Martin gave Ben and Tom an account of the way these coral islands are formed. “Coral, you will understands is made by very small sea insects, who form it for their habitation,” he observed. “God has given them the instinct to build in certain ways and places, just, as if they knew what they were about, and that they were building up an island fit to be inhabited by human beings. They seem to choose the tops of rocks from one hundred to two hundred fathoms below the surface, for the foundation of their structure. ”

“ In time our coral reef may become a beautiful tropical island fringed with waving trees and plants, and inhabited by man.
Fig. 2.—An Atoll.
Circular islands seldom form complete rings. There is generally an opening into the lake on the side most sheltered from the wind. A safe harbor in mid-ocean is thus made, in which vessels may take shelter, but it requires an expert navigator to pass the perils at its entrance. To anchor on the outer shore would be impossible. In Fig. 2 is a pretty little coral island with ships in its lagoon. ”

“ There is considerable beauty in a small coral reef, when seen from a ship's mast-head, at a short distance, in clear weather. A small island with a white sand-beach and a tuft of trees, is surrounded by a symmetrically oval space of shallow water, of a bright grass-green colour, enclosed by a ring of glittering surf as white as snow; immediately outside of which is the rich dark blue of deep water. All the sea is perfectly clear from any mixture of sand or mud. It is this perfect clearness of the water which renders navigation among coral reefs at all practicable ”

“ Within the lagoon were several pretty, low coral islands, just opposite our encampment; and, immediately beyond these, out at sea, lay about a dozen other islands, at various distances, from half a mile to ten miles; all of them, as far as we could discern, smaller than ours and apparently uninhabited. ”

“ They seemed to be low coral islands, raised but little above the sea, yet covered with cocoa-nut trees.
All this we noted, and a great deal more, while we sat on the top of the mountain. After we had satisfied ourselves we prepared to return; but here again we discovered traces of the presence of man. These were a pole or staff and one or two pieces of wood which had been squared with an axe. ”

“ A bare ledge of coral first appears, just at the surface; it arrests floating substances, weeds, trees, etcetera; soon the sea-birds begin to resort there; by the decay of vegetable and animal matter a thin soil gradually covers the foundation of coral; a cocoa-nut is drifted upon it by the winds, or the currents of the sea; it takes root, springs up, its fruit ripens and falls, and in a few years the whole new-formed island is covered with waving groves.”
“Mr Frazer says he has no doubt that these seas swarm with such islands, and that many of them have never been discovered,” said Max ”

“ They told me of thousands of beautiful fertile islands that had been formed by a small creature called the coral insect, where summer reigned nearly all the year round,—where the trees were laden with a constant harvest of luxuriant fruit,—where the climate was almost perpetually delightful,—yet where, strange to say, men were wild, bloodthirsty savages, excepting in those favored isles to which the gospel of our Saviour had been conveyed. ”

“ Above the sea they cannot build. To be washed by the waves is essential to their existence.
We do not think this a very satisfactory theory, because it supposes a prolonged subsiding of these islands, and then an unaccountably sudden stoppage. For although the corallines might continue to build during the whole time of subsidence, it were utterly impossible that the coral island, with its luxuriant herbage, could be formed until that subsidence should have ceased. The manner in which the islands are formed makes this obvious. ”

“ Much the same in make are the Fringing Reefs and Barrier Reefs, except that the former skirt the shore more closely, while the latter may lie at a distance of many miles from island or mainland.
It is impossible for the polyps to raise their stony structure above the sea. Some kinds can endure exposure to the air for a short time without dying, but only for a short time. A coral island, when first built, is merely level with the ocean-surface at low tide. ”

“ The island turned out to be one of the Pomotu or Low Group—sometimes called the Coral Islands—perhaps the most remarkable and interesting in the Pacific. Lying to the east of Tahiti, the nearest are within a day’s sail of that place.
They are very numerous; mostly small, low, and level; sometimes wooded, but always covered with verdure. Many are crescent-shaped; others resemble a horse-shoe in figure. ”

“ Like Mangaia, Mitiaro, and Atiu, this island is of mixed volcanic and raised-coral origin—the pinnacle of a submerged peak, ringed with millions of tons of coral, and without any lagoon worthy of the name. The polyps have built a sort of platform around the land, low inshore and highest—as seems usually the case—just before it drops off into the sea. Breaching across the outer ridge, the surf fills a narrow belt of shallows between it and the shore; the result is a miniature edition of a lagoon—a place of rocky pools where children wade knee-deep, on the lookout for crayfish and baby octopus. ”

“ The expanse of water inside when not occupied by land usually exhibits a depth of from 15 to 30 fathoms, with numerous sunken patches of coral, and several reefs which partially dry at low-water. The shores of the islands also are generally protected by fringing coral reefs, the largest of which is that extending off the west and south side of Piron Island to a distance of seven or eight miles, with a well defined border towards Coral Haven. ”

“ Yet we found the trees growing thus on the sands to be quite as luxuriant as those growing in the valleys, and the fruit as good and refreshing also. Besides this, I noticed that, on the summit of the high mountain, which we once more ascended at a different point from our first ascent, were found abundance of shells and broken coral formations, which Jack and I agreed proved either that this island must have once been under the sea, or that the sea must once have been above the island. ”

“ Then birds visit the spot, and seeds are thus conveyed thither, which take root, and spring up and flourish. Thus are commenced those coral-line islets of which you have seen so many in these seas. The reefs round the large islands are formed in a similar manner. When we consider," added the missionary, "the smallness of the architects used by our heavenly Father in order to form those lovely and innumerable islands, we are filled with much of that feeling which induced the ancient king to exclaim, "How manifold, O God, are thy works! ”

“ As far as the actual reef of coral is concerned, there is not the smallest difference in general size, outline, grouping, and even in quite trifling details of structure, between a barrier and an atoll. The geographer Balbi has well remarked that an encircled island is an atoll with high land rising out of its lagoon; remove the land from within, and a perfect atoll is left.
But what has caused these reefs to spring up at such great distances from the shores of the included islands? It cannot be that the corals will not grow close to the land ”

“ Many men, no doubt, become parents in order to give ‘The Coral Island’ to their son. Jack, Ralph, and Peterkin, I salute you, and hope you are all a fond memory recalls. Not since my schooldays have I met you, but I know what was in the pockets of the three of you the day you landed on that island better than I know the contents of my own to-day, and your wondrous cave is more to me than the Strand.”
The Coral Island. A Tale of the Pacific.
“No boy could be expected to respect another boy who had not read Ballantyne’s bewitching book ‘The Coral Island.’”—Gavin Ogilvy, in The British Weekly. ”

“ These are coral islands, slowly raised, but continuous, created by the daily work of polypi. Then this new island will be joined later on to the neighboring groups, and a fifth continent will stretch from New Zealand and New Caledonia, and from thence to the Marquesas.
One day, when I was suggesting this theory to Captain Nemo, he replied coldly:
"The earth does not want new continents, but new men." ”

“ These islands lie on the north and east of Cuba, and are a large group of coral islands, which are formed by those great coral reefs which are known as the Bahama Banks. Twenty of them are uninhabited, and many of them are mere reefs or keys.
These islands are very interesting from the fact that they have all been built by the coral insects. Each of these tiny creatures gathers lime from the water in which it lives or the food which it eats, and develops from this a skeleton, which is the coral. They live in masses or colonies, and throw out buds above them which form fresh coral insects. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Whitsunday Island is of small size, and the whole circle has been converted into land, which is a comparatively rare circumstance. As the reef of a lagoon-island generally supports many separate small islands, the word “island,” applied to the whole, is often the cause of confusion; hence I have invariably used in this volume the term “atoll,” which is the name given to these circular groups of coral-islets by their inhabitants in the Indian Ocean, and is synonymous with “lagoon- island.”
Barrier-reefs, when encircling small islands, have been comparatively little noticed by voyagers ”

“ In exploring such places there ought to be a boat on each bow, as well as one a-head. The coast from this bay to the south point of the island has a belt of coral reefs at the distance of ten and fifteen miles from the shore, and therefore cannot be approached by a ship without great danger. The extreme south point is comparatively clear of coral; we therefore anchored off it at sunset, proposing to land next day to determine its position. We found the iron cables of great use when anchoring amongst coral reefs. ”

“ In the eastern half of the Pacific, the Sandwich Islands are all fringed, and almost every naturalist who has visited them, has remarked on the abundance of elevated corals and shells, apparently identical with living species. The Rev. W. Ellis informs me, that he has noticed round several parts of Hawaii, beds of coral-detritus, about twenty feet above the level of the sea, and where the coast is low they extend far inland. Upraised coral-rock forms a considerable part of the borders of Oahu; and at Elizabeth Island [8] it composes three strata, each about ten feet thick. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If they settle about an island on all sides of which the conditions for their growth are equally favorable, they will raise a wall all around it, thus encircling it with a ring of Coral growth. The Athols in the Pacific Ocean, those circular islands inclosing sometimes a fresh-water lake in mid-ocean, are Coral walls of this kind, that have formed a ring around a central island. This is easily understood, if we remember that the bottom of the Pacific Ocean is by no means a stable foundation for such a structure. ”