least degree, the geological importance of such calcareous

masses.

Suppose the ordinary growth of coral limestone to amount to six inches in a century, it will then require three thousand years to produce a reef fifteen feet thick; but have we any ground for presuming that, at the end of that period, or of ten times thirty centuries, there will be a failure in the supply of lime, or that the polyps and molluscs will cease to act, or that the hour of the dissolution of our planet will first arrive, as the earlier geologists were fain to anticipate?

Instead of contemplating the brief annals of human events, let us turn to some natural chronometers, to the volcanic isles of the Pacific, for example, which shoot up ten or fifteen thousand feet above the level of the ocean. These islands bear evident marks of having been produced by successive volcanic eruptions; and coral reefs are sometimes found on the volcanic soil, reaching for some distance from the sea-shore into the interior. When we consider the time required for the accumulation of such mountain masses of igneous matter according to the analogy of known volcanic agency, all idea of extenuating the comparative magnitude of coral limestones, on the ground of the slowness of the operations of lithogenous polyps, must instantly vanish.

The information collected during the late expedition to the Pacific throws much additional light on the peculiarities of form and structure of coral islands. Of thirty-two of these, examined by Captain Beechey, the largest was thirty miles in diameter, and the smallest less than a mile. They were of various shapes, all formed of living coral, except one, which, although of coral formation, was raised about eighty feet above the level of the sea, and encompassed by a reef of living coral. All were increasing their dimensions by the active operations of the lithophytes which appeared to be gradually extending and bringing the immersed parts of their structure to the surface. Twenty-nine of the number had lagoons in their centres, which had probably existed in the others, until they were filled, in the course of time, by zoophytic and other substances.

In the above-mentioned islands, the strips of dry coral encircling the lagoons when divested of loose sandy materials heaped upon them, are rarely elevated more than two feet above the level of the sea; and were it not for the abrupt descent of the external margin which causes the sea to break upon it, these strips would be wholly inundated. "Those parts of the strip which are beyond the reach of the waves are no longer inhabited by the animals that reared them, but have their cells filled with a hard calcareous substance, and present a brown rugged appearance. The parts which are still immersed, or are dry at low water only, are intersected by small channels, and are so full of hollows that the tide, as it recedes, leaves small lakes of water upon them. The width of the plain or strip of dead coral, in the islands which fell under our observation, in no instance exceeded half a mile from the usual wash of the sea to the edge of the lagoon, and in general was only about three or four hundred yards *." limits the sides of the island descend rapidly, apparently by a succession of inclined ledges, each terminating in a precipice. The depth of the lagoons is various; in some entered by Captain Beechey, it was from twenty to thirty-eight fathoms. In the annexed cut (No. 5), one of these circular islands is

Beyond these

This plate and the section which follows are copied, by permission of Captain Beechey, from the illustrations of his valuable work before alluded to.

VOL. II.

U

represented just rising above the waves, covered with the cocoa-nut and other trees, and inclosing within, a lagoon of tranquil water.

The accompanying section will enable the reader to comprehend the usual form of such islands. (No. 6.)

Z

a

No. 6.

Section of a Coral Island.

(a a) Habitable part of the island, consisting of a strip of coral, inclosing the

The subjoined cut (No. 7) exhibits a small part of the section of a coral island on a larger scale.

No. 7.

α

Section of part of a Coral Island.

(a b) Habitable part of the island.

(be) Slope of the side of the island, plunging at an angle of forty-five to the depth of fifteen hundred feet.

(cc) Part of the lagoon.

(dd) Knolls of coral in the lagoon, with over-hanging masses of coral, resembling the capitals of columns.

The circular or oval forms of the numerous coral isles of the Pacific, with the lagoons in their centre, naturally suggest the idea that they are nothing more than the crests of submarine volcanos, having the rims and bottoms of their craters overgrown by corals. This opinion is strengthened by the conical form of the submarine mountain, and the steep angle at which it plunges on all sides into the surrounding ocean. It is also well known that the Pacific is a great theatre of volcanic action, and every island yet examined in the wide region termed Eastern Oceanica, consists either of volcanic rocks or coral limestones.

It has also been observed that, although within the circular coral reefs, there is usually nothing discernible but a lagoon,

the bottom of which is covered with coral, yet within some of these basins, as in Gambier's group, rocks composed of porous lava and other volcanic substances, rise up, resembling the two Kameni's, and other eminences of igneous origin, which have been thrown up within the times of history, in the midst of the Gulf of Santorin *.

We mentioned that in volcanic archipelagos there is generally one large habitual vent, and many smaller volcanos formed at different points and at irregular intervals, all of which have usually a linear arrangement. Now in several of the groups of Eastern Oceanica there appears to be a similar disposition, the great islands, such as Otaheite, Owhyhee, and Terra del Spirito Santo, being habitual vents, and the lines of small circular coral isles which are dependent on them being very probably trains of minor volcanos, which may have been in eruption singly and at irregular intervals.

The absence of circular groups in the West Indian seas, and the tropical parts of the Atlantic, where corals are numerous, has been adduced as an additional argument, inasmuch as volcanic vents, though existing in those regions, are very inferior in importance to those in the Pacific and Indian seas †. It may be objected that the circles formed by some coral reefs or groups of coral islets, varying as they do from ten to thirty miles and upwards in diameter, are so great as to preclude the idea of their being volcanic craters. In regard to this objection we may refer to what we have said in a former volume respecting the size of the so-called craters of elevation, many of which, we conceive, may be the ruins of truncated cones‡.

There is yet another phenomenon attending the circular reefs, to which we have not alluded, viz., the deep narrow passage which almost invariably leads from the sea into the lagoon, and is kept open by the efflux of the sea at low tides. It is sufficient that a reef should rise a few feet above low-water mark to cause the waters to collect in the lagoon at high tide,

*See vol. i. p. 386.

De la Beche, Geol. Man. P. 141.

See vol. i. p. 388.

and, when the sea fails, to rush out violently at one or more points where the reef happens to be lowest or weakest. At first there are probably many openings; but the growth of the corals tends to obstruct all those which do not serve as the principal channels of discharge, so that their number is gradually reduced to a few, and often finally to one. This event is strictly analogous to that witnessed in our estuaries, where a body of salt-water accumulated during the flow, issues with great velocity at the ebb of the tide, and scours out or keeps open a deep passage through the bar, which is almost always

formed at the mouth of a river.

When we controverted in our first volume Von Buch's theory of "elevation craters," we suggested that the single gorge leading from the central cavity to the sea, may have been produced by a stream of water issuing from a lake filling the original crater, and which had in process of time cut a deep channel *; but we overlooked the more probable cause, the action of the tides, which affords, we think, a most satisfactory explanation. Suppose a volcanic cone, having a deep crater, to be at first submarine, and to be then gradually elevated by earthquakes in an ocean where tides prevail, a ravine cannot fail to be cut like that which penetrates into the Caldera of the isle of Palma. The opening would at first be made on that side where the rim of the crater was originally lowest, and it would afterwards be deepened as the island rose, so as always to descend somewhat lower than the level of the sea. Captain Beechey's observations, therefore, of the effect of the tides on the coral islands, corroborate the opinion which we offered respecting the mode of formation of islands having a configuration like Palma; whereas the theory of the sudden upheaving of horizontal strata into a conical form, affords no explanation whatever of the single ravine which intersects one side of these circular islands.

In the coral reefs surrounding those volcanic islands in the Pacific which are large enough to feed small rivers, there is generally an opening or channel opposite the point where the * Vol. i., p. 395.