Coral Reefs. Darwin Charles

no islets on the reef of Tahiti) it can properly be compared. At Tahiti, the reef is very irregular in width; but round many other encircled islands, for instance, Vanikoro or Gambier Islands (Figures 1 and 8, Plate I.), it is quite as regular, and of the same average width, as in true atolls. Most barrier-reefs on the inner side slope irregularly into the lagoon-channel (as the space of deep water separating the reef from the included land may be called), but at Vanikoro the reef slopes only for a short distance, and then terminates abruptly in a submarine wall, forty feet high, – a structure absolutely similar to that described by Chamisso in the Marshall atolls.

      In the Society Archipelago, Ellis (Consult, on this and other points, the "Polynesian Researches," by the Rev. W. Ellis, an admirable work, full of curious information.) states, that the reefs generally lie at the distance of from one to one and a half miles, and, occasionally, even at more than three miles, from the shore. The central mountains are generally bordered by a fringe of flat, and often marshy, alluvial land, from one to four miles in width. This fringe consists of coral-sand and detritus thrown up from the lagoon-channel, and of soil washed down from the hills; it is an encroachment on the channel, analogous to that low and inner part of the islets in many atolls which is formed by the accumulation of matter from the lagoon. At Hogoleu (Figure 2, Plate I.), in the Caroline Archipelago (See "Hydrographical Mem." and the "Atlas of the Voyage of the 'Astrolabe'," by Captain Dumont D'Urville, page 428.), the reef on the south side is no less than twenty miles; on the east side, five; and on the north side, fourteen miles from the encircled high islands.

      The lagoon channels may be compared in every respect with true lagoons. In some cases they are open, with a level bottom of fine sand; in others they are choked up with reefs of delicately branched corals, which have the same general character as those within the Keeling atoll. These internal reefs either stand separately, or more commonly skirt the shores of the included high islands. The depth of the lagoon-channel round the Society Islands varies from two or three to thirty fathoms; in Cook's (See the chart in volume i. of Hawkesworth's 4to edition of "Cook's First Voyage.") chart of Ulieta, however, there is one sounding laid down of forty-eight fathoms; at Vanikoro there are several of fifty-four and one of fifty-six and a half fathoms (English), a depth which even exceeds by a little that of the interior of the great Maldiva atolls. Some barrier-reefs have very few islets on them; whilst others are surmounted by numerous ones; and those round part of Bolabola (Plate I., Figure 5) form a single linear strip. The islets first appear either on the angles of the reef, or on the sides of the breaches through it, and are generally most numerous on the windward side. The reef to leeward retaining its usual width, sometimes lies submerged several fathoms beneath the surface; I have already mentioned Gambier Island as an instance of this structure. Submerged reefs, having a less defined outline, dead, and covered with sand, have been observed (see Appendix) off some parts of Huaheine and Tahiti. The reef is more frequently breached to leeward than to windward; thus I find in Krusenstern's "Memoir on the Pacific," that there are passages through the encircling reef on the leeward side of each of the seven Society Islands, which possess ship-harbours; but that there are openings to windward through the reef of only three of them. The breaches in the reef are seldom as deep as the interior lagoon-like channel; they generally occur in front of the main valleys, a circumstance which can be accounted for, as will be seen in the fourth chapter, without much difficulty. The breaches being situated in front of the valleys, which descend indifferently on all sides, explains their more frequent occurrence through the windward side of barrier-reefs than through the windward side of atolls, – for in atolls there is no included land to influence the position of the breaches.

      It is remarkable, that the lagoon-channels round mountainous islands have not in every instance been long ago filled up with coral and sediment; but it is more easily accounted for than appears at first sight. In cases like that of Hogoleu and the Gambier Islands, where a few small peaks rise out of a great lagoon, the conditions scarcely differ from those of an atoll, and I have already shown, at some length, that the filling up of a true lagoon must be an extremely slow process. Where the channel is narrow, the agency, which on unprotected coasts is most productive of sediment, namely the force of the breakers, is here entirely excluded, and the reef being breached in the front of the main valleys, much of the finer mud from the rivers must be transported into the open sea. As a current is formed by the water thrown over the edge of atoll-formed reefs, which carries sediment with it through the deep-water breaches, the same thing probably takes place in barrier-reefs, and this would greatly aid in preventing the lagoon-channel from being filled up. The low alluvial border, however, at the foot of the encircled mountains, shows that the work of filling up is in progress; and at Maura (Plate I., Figure 6), in the Society group, it has been almost effected, so that there remains only one harbour for small craft.

      If we look at a set of charts of barrier-reefs, and leave out in imagination the encircled land, we shall find that, besides the many points already noticed of resemblance, or rather of identity in structure with atolls, there is a close general agreement in form, average dimensions, and grouping. Encircling barrier-reefs, like atolls, are generally elongated, with an irregularly rounded, though sometimes angular outline. There are atolls of all sizes, from less than two miles in diameter to sixty miles (excluding Tilla-dou-Matte, as it consists of a number of almost independent atoll-formed reefs); and there are encircling barrier-reefs from three miles and a half to forty-six miles in diameter, – Turtle Island being an instance of the former, and Hogoleu of the latter. At Tahiti the encircled island is thirty-six miles in its longest axis, whilst at Maurua it is only a little more than two miles. It will be shown, in the last chapter in this volume, that there is the strictest resemblance in the grouping of atolls and of common islands, and consequently there must be the same resemblance in the grouping of atolls and of encircling barrier-reefs.

      The islands lying within reefs of this class, are of very various heights. Tahiti is 7,000 feet (The height of Tahiti is given from Captain Beechey; Maurua from Mr. F.D. Bennett ("Geograph. Journ." volume viii., page 220); Aitutaki from measurements made on board the "Beagle"; and Manouai or Harvey Island, from an estimate by the Rev. J. Williams. The two latter islands, however, are not in some respects well characterised examples of the encircled class.); Maurua about 800; Aitutaki 360, and Manouai only 50. The geological nature of the included land varies: in most cases it is of ancient volcanic origin, owing apparently to the fact that islands of this nature are most frequent within all great seas; some, however, are of madreporitic limestone, and others of primary formation, of which latter kind New Caledonia offers the best example. The central land consists either of one island, or of several: thus, in the Society group, Eimeo stands by itself; while Taha and Raiatea (Figure 3, Plate I.), both moderately large islands of nearly equal size, are included in one reef. Within the reef of the Gambier group there are four large and some smaller islands (Figure 8, Plate I.); within that of Hogoleu (Figure 2, Plate I.) nearly a dozen small islands are scattered over the expanse of one vast lagoon.

      After the details now given, it may be asserted that there is not one point of essential difference between encircling barrier-reefs and atolls: the latter enclose a simple sheet of water, the former encircle an expanse with one or more islands rising from it. 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.