Coral Reefs
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There appears to be scarcely a feature in the structure of Keeling reef, which is not of common, if not of universal occurrence, in other atolls. Thus Chamisso describes (Kotzebue's "First Voyage," volume iii., page 144.) a layer of coarse conglomerate, outside the islets round the Marshall atolls which "appears on its upper surface uneven and eaten away." From drawings, with appended remarks, of Diego Garcia in the Chagos group and of several of the Maldiva atolls, shown me by Captain Moresby (see also Moresby on the Northern atolls of the Maldivas, "Geographical Journal", volume v., page 400.), it is evident that their outer coasts are subject to the same round of decay and renovation as those of Keeling atoll. From the description of the atolls in the Low Archipelago, given in Captain Beechey's "Voyage," it is not apparent that any conglomerate coral-rock was there observed.
The lagoon in Keeling atoll is shallow; in the atolls of the Low Archipelago the depth varies from 20 to 38 fathoms, and in the Marshall Group, according to Chamisso, from 30 to 35; in the Caroline atolls it is only a little less. Within the Maldiva atolls there are large spaces with 45 fathoms, and some soundings are laid down of 49 fathoms. The greater part of the bottom in most lagoons, is formed of sediment; large spaces have exactly the same depth, or the depth varies so insensibly, that it is evident that no other means, excepting aqueous deposition, could have leveled the surface so equally. In the Maldiva atolls this is very conspicuous, and likewise in some of the Caroline and Marshall Islands. In the former large spaces consist of sand and SOFT CLAY; and Kotzebue speaks of clay having been found within one of the Marshall atolls. No doubt this clay is calcareous mud, similar to that at Keeling Island, and to that at Bermuda already referred to, as undistinguishable from disintegrated chalk, and which Lieutenant Nelson says is called there pipe-clay. (I may here observe that on the coast of Brazil, where there is much coral, the soundings near the land are described by Admiral Roussin, in the "Pilote du Bresil", as siliceous sand, mingled with much finely comminuted particles of shells and coral. Further in the offing, for a space of 1,300 miles along the coast, from the Abrolhos Islands to Maranham, the bottom in many places is composed of "tuf blanc, mele ou forme de madrepores broyes." This white substance, probably, is analogous to that which occurs within the above-mentioned lagoons; it is sometimes, according to Roussin, firm, and he compares it to mortar.)
Where the waves act with unequal force on the two sides of an atoll, the islets appear to be first formed, and are generally of greater continuity on the more exposed shore. The islets, also, which are placed to leeward, are in most parts of the Pacific liable to be occasionally swept entirely away by gales, equalling hurricanes in violence, which blow in an opposite direction to the ordinary trade-wind. The absence of the islets on the leeward side of atolls, or when present their lesser dimensions compared with those to windward, is a comparatively unimportant fact; but in several instances the reef itself on the leeward side, retaining its usual defined outline, does not rise to the surface by several fathoms. This is the case with the southern side of Peros Banhos (Plate I., Figure 9) in the Chagos group, with Mourileu atoll (Frederick Lutke's "Voyage autour du Monde," volume ii., page 291. See also his account of Namonouito, below, and the chart of Oulleay in the Atlas.) in the Caroline Archipelago, and with the barrier-reef (Plate I., Figure 8) of the Gambier Islands. I allude to the latter reef, although belonging to another class, because Captain Beechey was first led by it to observe the peculiarity in the question. At Peros Banhos the submerged part is nine miles in length, and lies at an average depth of about five fathoms; its surface is nearly level, and consists of hard stone, with a thin covering of loose sand. There is scarcely any living coral on it, even on the outer margin, as I have been particularly assured by Captain Moresby; it is, in fact, a wall of dead coral-rock, having the same width and transverse section with the reef in its ordinary state, of which it is a continuous portion. The living and perfect parts terminate abruptly, and abut on the submerged portions, in the same manner as on the sides of an ordinary passage through the reef. The reef to leeward in other cases is nearly or quite obliterated, and one side of the lagoon is left open; for instance, at Oulleay (Caroline Archipelago), where a crescent-formed reef is fronted by an irregular bank, on which the other half of the annular reef probably once stood. At Namonouito, in the same Archipelago, both these modifications of the reef concur; it consists of a great flat bank, with from twenty to twenty-five fathoms water on it; for a length of more than forty miles on its southern side it is open and without any reef, whilst on the other sides it is bounded by a reef, in parts rising to the surface and perfectly characterised, in parts lying some fathoms submerged. In the Chagos group there are annular reefs, entirely submerged, which have the same structure as the submerged and defined portions just described. The Speaker's Bank offers an excellent example of this structure; its central expanse, which is about twenty-two fathoms deep, is twenty-four miles across; the external rim is of the usual width of annular reefs, and is well-defined; it lies between six and eight fathoms beneath the surface, and at the same depth there are scattered knolls in the lagoon. Captain Moresby believes the rim consists of dead rock, thinly covered with sand, and he is certain this is the case with the external rim of the Great Chagos Bank, which is also essentially a submerged atoll. In both these cases, as in the submerged portion of the reef at Peros Banhos, Captain Moresby feels sure that the quantity of living coral, even on the outer edge overhanging the deep-sea water, is quite insignificant. Lastly, in several parts of the Pacific and Indian Oceans there are banks, lying at greater depths than in the cases just mentioned, of the same form and size with the neighbouring atolls, but with their atoll-like structure wholly obliterated. It appears from the survey of Freycinet, that there are banks of this kind in the Caroline Archipelago, and, as is reported, in the Low Archipelago. When we discuss the origin of the different classes of coral formations, we shall see that the submerged state of the whole of some atoll-formed reefs, and of portions of others, generally but not invariably on the leeward side, and the existence of more deeply submerged banks now possessing little or no signs of their original atoll-like structure, are probably the effects of a uniform cause, – namely, the death of the coral, during the subsidence of the area, in which the atolls or banks are situated.
There is seldom, with the exception of the Maldiva atolls, more than two or three channels, and generally only one leading into the lagoon, of sufficient depth for a ship to enter. in small atolls, there is usually not even one. Where there is deep water, for instance above twenty fathoms, in the middle of the lagoon, the channels through the reef are seldom as deep as the centre, – it may be said that the rim only of the saucer-shaped hollow forming the lagoon is notched. Mr. Lyell ("Principles of Geology," volume iii., page 289.) has observed that the growth of the coral would tend to obstruct all the channels through a reef, except those kept open by discharging the water, which during high tide and the greater part of each ebb is thrown over its circumference. Several facts indicate that a considerable quantity of sediment is likewise discharged through these channels; and Captain Moresby informs me that he has observed, during the change of the monsoon, the sea discoloured to a distance off the entrances into the Maldiva and Chagos atolls. This, probably, would check the growth of the coral in them, far more effectually than a mere current of water. In the many small atolls without any channel, these causes have not prevented the entire ring attaining the surface. The channels, like the submerged and effaced parts of the reef, very generally though not invariably occur on the leeward side of the atoll, or on that side, according to Beechey (Beechey's "Voyage," 4to edition, volume i., page 189.), which, from running in the same direction with the prevalent wind, is not fully exposed to it. Passages between the islets on the reef, through which boats can pass at high water, must not be confounded with ship-channels, by which the annular reef itself is breached. The passages between the islets occur, of course, on the windward as well as on the leeward side; but they are more frequent and broader to leeward, owing to the lesser dimensions of the islets on that side.
At Keeling atoll the shores of the lagoon shelve gradually, where the bottom is of sediment, and irregularly or abruptly where there are coral-reefs; but this is by no means the universal structure in other atolls. Chamisso (Kotzebue's "First Voyage," volume iii., page 142.), speaking in general terms of the lagoons in the Marshall atolls, says the lead generally sinks "from a depth of two or three fathoms to twenty or twenty-four, and you may pursue a line in which on one side of the boat you may see the bottom, and on the other the azure-blue deep water." The shores of the lagoon-like channel within the barrier-reef at Vanikoro have a similar structure. Captain Beechey has described a modification of this structure (and he believes it is not uncommon) in two atolls in the Low Archipelago, in which the shores of the lagoon descend by a few, broad, slightly inclined ledges or steps: thus at Matilda atoll (Beechey's "Voyage," 4to edition, volume i, page 160. At Whitsunday Island the bottom of the lagoon slopes gradually towards the centre, and then deepens suddenly, the edge of the bank being nearly perpendicular. This bank is formed of coral and dead shells.), the great exterior reef, the surface of which is gently inclined towards and beneath the surface of the lagoon, ends abruptly in a little cliff three fathoms deep; at its foot, a ledge forty yards wide extends, shelving gently inwards like the surface-reef, and terminated by a second little cliff five fathoms deep; beyond this, the bottom of the lagoon slopes to twenty fathoms, which is the average depth of its centre. These ledges seem to be formed of coral-rock; and Captain Beechey says that the lead often descended several fathoms through holes in them. In some atolls, all the coral reefs or knolls in the lagoon come to the surface at low water; in other cases of rarer occurrence, all lie at nearly the same depth beneath it, but most frequently they are quite irregular, – some with perpendicular, some with sloping sides, – some rising to the surface, and others lying at all intermediate depths from the bottom upwards. I cannot, therefore, suppose that the union of such reefs could produce even one uniformly sloping ledge, and much less two or three, one beneath the other, and each terminated by an abrupt wall. At Matilda Island, which offers the best example of the step-like structure, Captain Beechey observes that the coral-knolls within the lagoon are quite irregular in their height. We shall hereafter see that the theory which accounts for the ordinary form of atolls, apparently includes this occasional peculiarity in their structure.
In the midst of a group of atolls, there sometimes occur small, flat, very low islands of coral formation, which probably once included a lagoon, since filled up with sediment and coral-reefs. Captain Beechey entertains no doubt that this has been the case with the two small islands, which alone of thirty-one surveyed by him in the Low Archipelago, did not contain lagoons. Romanzoff Island (in lat. 15 deg S.) is described by Chamisso (Kotzebue's "First Voyage," volume iii., page 221.) as formed by a dam of madreporitic rock inclosing a flat space, thinly covered with trees, into which the sea on the leeward side occasionally breaks. North Keeling atoll appears to be in a rather less forward stage of conversion into land; it consists of a horse-shoe shaped strip of land surrounding a muddy flat, one mile in its longest axis, which is covered by the sea only at high water. When describing South Keeling atoll, I endeavoured to show how slow the final process of filling up a lagoon must be; nevertheless, as all causes do tend to produce this effect, it is very remarkable that not one instance, as I believe, is known of a moderately sized lagoon being filled up even to the low water-line at spring-tides, much less of such a one being converted into land. It is, likewise, in some degree remarkable, how few atolls, except small ones, are surrounded by a single linear strip of land, formed by the union of separate islets. We cannot suppose that the many atolls in the Pacific and Indian Oceans all have had a late origin, and yet should they remain at their present level, subjected only to the action of the sea and to the growing powers of the coral, during as many centuries as must have elapsed since any of the earlier tertiary epochs, it cannot, I think, be doubted that their lagoons and the islets on their reef, would present a totally different appearance from what they now do. This consideration leads to the suspicion that some renovating agency (namely subsidence) comes into play at intervals, and perpetuates their original structure.
(DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES
PLATE II. – GREAT CHAGOS BANK, NEW CALEDONIA,MENCHIKOFF ATOLL, ETC.
FIGURE 1. – GREAT CHAGOS BANK, in the Indian Ocean; taken from the survey by Captain Moresby and Lieutenant Powell; the parts which are shaded, with the exception of two or three islets on the western and northern sides, do not rise to the surface, but are submerged from four to ten fathoms; the banks bounded by the dotted lines lie from fifteen to twenty fathoms beneath the surface, and are formed of sand; the central space is of mud, and from thirty to fifty fathoms deep.
FIGURE 2. – A vertical section, on the same scale, in an eastern and western line across the Great Chagos Bank, given for the sake of exhibiting more clearly its structure.
FIGURE 3. – MENCHIKOFF ATOLL (or lagoon-island), in the Marshall Archipelago, Northern Pacific Ocean; from Krusenstern's "Atlas of the Pacific;" originally surveyed by Captain Hagemeister; the depth within the lagoons is unknown.
FIGURE 4. – MAHLOS MAHDOO ATOLL, together with Horsburgh atoll, in the Maldiva Archipelago; from the survey by Captain Moresby and Lieutenant Powell; the white spaces in the middle of the separate small reefs, both on the margin and in the middle part, are meant to represent little lagoons; but it was found not possible to distinguish them clearly from the small islets, which have been formed on these same small reefs; many of the smaller reefs could not be introduced; the nautical mark (dot over a dash) over the figures 250 and 200, between Mahlos Mahdoo and Horsburgh atoll and Powell's island, signifies that soundings were not obtained at these depths.
FIGURE 5. – NEW CALEDONIA, in the western part of the Pacific; from Krusenstern's "Atlas," compiled from several surveys; I have slightly altered the northern point of the reef, in accordance with the "Atlas of the Voyage of the 'Astrolabe'." In Krusenstern's "Atlas," the reef is represented by a single line with crosses; I have for the sake of uniformity added an interior line.
FIGURE 6. – MALDIVA ARCHIPELAGO, in the Indian Ocean; from the survey by Captain Moresby and Lieutenant Powell.)
SECTION 1.III. – ATOLLS OF THE MALDIVA ARCHIPELAGO – GREAT CHAGOS BANK
Maldiva Archipelago. – Ring-formed reefs, marginal and central. – Great depths in the lagoons of the southern atolls. – Reefs in the lagoons all rising to the surface. – Position of islets and breaches in the reefs, with respect to the prevalent winds and action of the waves. – Destruction of islets. – Connection in the position and submarine foundation of distinct atolls. – The apparent disseverment of large atolls. – The Great Chagos Bank. – Its submerged condition and extraordinary structure.
Although occasional references have been made to the Maldiva atolls, and to the banks in the Chagos group, some points of their structure deserve further consideration. My description is derived from an examination of the admirable charts lately published from the survey of Captain Moresby and Lieutenant Powell, and more especially from information which Captain Moresby has communicated to me in the kindest manner.
The Maldiva Archipelago is 470 miles in length, with an average breadth of about 50 miles. The form and dimensions of the atolls, and their singular position in a double line, may be seen, but not well, in the greatly reduced chart (Figure 6) in Plate II. The dimensions of the longest atoll in the group (called by the double name of Milla-dou-Madou and Tilla-dou-Matte) have already been given; it is 88 miles in a medial and slightly curved line, and is less than 20 miles in its broadest part. Suadiva, also, is a noble atoll, being 44 miles across in one direction, and 34 in another, and the great included expanse of water has a depth of between 250 and 300 feet. The smaller atolls in this group differ in no respect from ordinary ones; but the larger ones are remarkable from being breached by numerous deep-water channels leading into the lagoon; for instance, there are 42 channels, through which a ship could enter the lagoon of Suadiva. In the three southern large atolls, the separate portions of reef between these channels have the ordinary structure, and are linear; but in the other atolls, especially the more northern ones, these portions are ring- formed, like miniature atolls. Other ring-formed reefs rise out of the lagoons, in the place of those irregular ones which ordinarily occur there. In the reduction of the chart of Mahlos Mahdoo (Plate II., Figure 4), it was not found easy to define the islets and the little lagoons within each reef, so that the ring-formed structure is very imperfectly shown; in the large published charts of Tilla-dou-Matte, the appearance of these rings, from standing further apart from each other, is very remarkable. The rings on the margin are generally elongated; many of them are three, and some even five miles, in diameter; those within the lagoon are usually smaller, few being more than two miles across, and the greater number rather less than one. The depth of the little lagoon within these small annular reefs is generally from five to seven fathoms, but occasionally more; and in Ari atoll many of the central ones are twelve, and some even more than twelve fathoms deep. These rings rise abruptly from the platform or bank, on which they are placed; their outer margin is invariably bordered by living coral (Captain Moresby informs me that Millepora complanata is one of the commonest kinds on the outer margin, as it is at Keeling atoll.) within which there is a flat surface of coral rock; of this flat, sand and fragments have in many cases accumulated and been converted into islets, clothed with vegetation. I can, in fact, point out no essential difference between these little ring-formed reefs (which, however, are larger, and contain deeper lagoons than many true atolls that stand in the open sea), and the most perfectly characterised atolls, excepting that the ring-formed reefs are based on a shallow foundation, instead of on the floor of the open sea, and that instead of being scattered irregularly, they are grouped closely together on one large platform, with the marginal rings arranged in a rudely formed circle.
The perfect series which can be traced from portions of simple linear reef, to others including long linear lagoons, and from these again to oval or almost circular rings, renders it probable that the latter are merely modifications of the linear or normal state. It is conformable with this view, that the ring-formed reefs on the margin, even where most perfect and standing furthest apart, generally have their longest axes directed in the line which the reef would have held, if the atoll had been bounded by an ordinary wall. We may also infer that the central ring-formed reefs are modifications of those irregular ones, which are found in the lagoons of all common atolls. It appears from the charts on a large scale, that the ring-like structure is contingent on the marginal channels or breaches being wide; and, consequently, on the whole interior of the atoll being freely exposed to the waters of the open sea. When the channels are narrow or few in number, although the lagoon be of great size and depth (as in Suadiva), there are no ring-formed reefs; where the channels are somewhat broader, the marginal portions of reef, and especially those close to the larger channels, are ring-formed, but the central ones are not so; where they are broadest, almost every reef throughout the atoll is more or less perfectly ring-formed. Although their presence is thus contingent on the openness of the marginal channels, the theory of their formation, as we shall hereafter see, is included in that of the parent atolls, of which they form the separate portions.
The lagoons of all the atolls in the southern part of the Archipelago are from ten to twenty fathoms deeper than those in the northern part. This is well exemplified in the case of Addoo, the southernmost atoll in the group, for although only nine miles in its longest diameter, it has a depth of thirty-nine fathoms, whereas all the other small atolls have comparatively shallow lagoons; I can assign no adequate cause for this difference in depth. In the central and deepest part of the lagoons, the bottom consists, as I am informed by Captain Moresby, of stiff clay (probably a calcareous mud); nearer the border it consists of sand, and in the channels through the reef, of hard sand-banks, sandstone, conglomerate rubble, and a little live coral. Close outside the reef and the line joining its detached portions (where intersected by many channels), the bottom is sandy, and it slopes abruptly into unfathomable depths. In most lagoons the depth is considerably greater in the centre than in the channels; but in Tilla-dou-Matte, where the marginal ring-formed reefs stand far apart, the same depth is carried across the entire atoll, from the deep-water line on one side to that on the other. I cannot refrain from once again remarking on the singularity of these atolls, – a great sandy and generally concave disc rises abruptly from the unfathomable ocean, with its central expanse studded and its border symmetrically fringed with oval basins of coral-rock, just lipping the surface of the sea, sometimes clothed with vegetation, and each containing a little lake of clear water!
In the southern Maldiva atolls, of which there are nine large ones, all the small reefs within the lagoons come to the surface, and are dry at low water spring-tides; hence in navigating them, there is no danger from submarine banks. This circumstance is very remarkable, as within some atolls, for instance those of the neighbouring Chagos group, not a single reef comes to the surface, and in most other cases a few only do, and the rest lie at all intermediate depths from the bottom upwards. When treating of the growth of coral I shall again refer to this subject.
Although in the neighbourhood of the Maldiva Archipelago the winds, during the monsoons, blow during nearly an equal time from opposite quarters, and although, as I am informed by Captain Moresby, the westerly winds are the strongest, yet the islets are almost all placed on the eastern side of the northern atolls, and on the south-eastern side of the southern atolls. That the formation of the islets is due to detritus thrown up from the outside, as in the ordinary manner, and not from the interior of the lagoons, may, I think be safely inferred from several considerations, which it is hardly worth while to detail. As the easterly winds are not the strongest, their action probably is aided by some prevailing swell or current.
In groups of atolls, exposed to a trade-wind, the ship-channels into the lagoons are almost invariably situated on the leeward or less exposed side of the reef, and the reef itself is sometimes either wanting there, or is submerged. A strictly analogous, but different fact, may be observed at the Maldiva atolls – namely, that where two atolls stand in front of each other, the breaches in the reef are the most numerous on their near, and therefore less exposed, sides. Thus on the near sides of Ari and the two Nillandoo atolls, which face S. Male, Phaleedoo, and Moloque atolls, there are seventy-three deep-water channels, and only twenty-five on their outer sides; on the near side of the three latter named atolls there are fifty- six openings, and only thirty-seven on their outsides. It is scarcely possible to attribute this difference to any other cause than the somewhat different action of the sea on the two sides, which would ensue from the protection afforded by the two rows of atolls to each other. I may here remark that in most cases, the conditions favourable to the greater accumulation of fragments on the reef and to its more perfect continuity on one side of the atoll than on the other, have concurred, but this has not been the case with the Maldivas; for we have seen that the islets are placed on the eastern or south-eastern sides, whilst the breaches in the reef occur indifferently on any side, where protected by an opposite atoll. The reef being more continuous on the outer and more exposed sides of those atolls which stand near each other, accords with the fact, that the reef of the southern atolls is more continuous than that of the northern ones; for the former, as I am informed by Captain Moresby, are more constantly exposed than the northern atolls to a heavy surf.