These
Animalcules Raise Their Habitation Gradually From A Small Base, Always
Spreading More And More, In Proportion As The Structure Grows Higher.
The Materials Are A Kind Of Lime Mixed With Some Animal Substance.
I
have seen these large structures in all stages, and of various extent.
Near Turtle-Island, we found, at
A few miles distance, and to leeward
of it, a considerable large circular reef, over which the sea broke
every where, and no part of it was above water; it included a large
deep lagoon. To the east and north-east of the Society-Isles, are a
great many isles, which, in some parts, are above water; in others,
the elevated parts are connected by reefs, some of which, are dry at
low-water, and others are constantly under water. The elevated parts
consist of a soil formed by a sand of shells and coral rocks, mixed
with a light black mould, produced from putrified vegetables, and the
dung of sea-fowls; and are commonly covered by cocoa-nut trees and
other shrubs, and a few antiscorbutic plants. The lower parts have
only a few shrubs, and the above plants; others still lower, are
washed by the sea at high-water. All these isles are connected, and
include a lagoon in the middle, which is full of the finest fish; and
sometimes there is an opening, admitting a boat, or canoe, in the
reef, but I never saw or heard of an opening that would admit a ship.
The reef, or the first origin of these cells, is formed by the
animalcules inhabiting the lithophytes. They raise their habitation
within a little of the surface of the sea, which gradually throws
shells, weeds, sand, small bits of corals, and other things, on the
tops of these coral rocks, and at last fairly raises them above water;
where the above things continue to be accumulated by the sea, till by
a bird, or by the sea, a few seeds of plants, that commonly grow on
the sea-shore, are thrown up, and begin to vegetate; and by their
annual decay and reproduction from seeds, create a little mould,
yearly accumulated by the mixture from sand, increasing the dry spot
on every side; till another sea happens to carry a cocoa-nut hither,
which preserves its vegetative power a long time in the sea, and
therefore will soon begin to grow on this soil, especially as it
thrives equally in all kinds of soil; and thus may all these low isles
have become covered with the finest cocoa-nut trees. The animalcules
forming these reefs, want to shelter their habitation from the
impetuosity of the winds, and the power and rage of the ocean; but as
within the tropics, the winds blow commonly from one quarter, they, by
instinct, endeavour to stretch only a ledge, within which is a lagoon,
which is certainly entirely screened against the power of both; this,
therefore, might account for the method employed by the animalcules in
building only narrow ledges of coral rocks, to secure in this middle a
calm and sheltered place, and this seems to me to be the most probable
cause of the origin of all the tropical low isles, over the whole
South Sea." - F.
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