)
KEELING ISLAND:--CORAL FORMATIONS.
Keeling Island.
Singular appearance.
Scanty Flora.
Transport of seeds.
Birds and insects.
Ebbing and flowing springs.
Fields of dead coral.
Stones transported in the roots of trees.
Great crab.
Stinging corals.
Coral-eating fish.
Coral formations.
Lagoon islands or atolls.
Depth at which reef-building corals can live.
Vast areas interspersed with low coral islands.
Subsidence of their foundations.
Barrier reefs.
Fringing reefs.
Conversion of fringing-reefs into barrier-reefs, and into atolls.
Evidence of changes in level.
Breaches in barrier-reefs.
Maldiva atolls; their peculiar structure.
Dead and submerged reefs.
Areas of subsidence and elevation.
Distribution of volcanoes.
Subsidence slow and vast in amount.
APRIL 1, 1836.
We arrived in view of the Keeling or Cocos Islands, situated in the
Indian Ocean, and about six hundred miles distant from the coast of
Sumatra. This is one of the lagoon-islands (or atolls) of coral
formation similar to those in the Low Archipelago which we passed
near. When the ship was in the channel at the entrance, Mr. Liesk,
an English resident, came off in his boat.
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