The Saucer-Shaped Summit Is Nearly Ten Miles Across; And Every Single Atom, [10] From The Least Particle To The Largest Fragment Of Rock, In This Great Pile, Which However Is Small Compared With Very Many Other Lagoon-Islands, Bears The Stamp Of Having Been Subjected To Organic Arrangement.

We feel surprise when travellers tell us of the vast dimensions of the Pyramids and other great ruins, but how utterly insignificant are the greatest of these, when compared to these mountains of stone accumulated by the agency of various minute and tender animals!

This is a wonder which does not at first strike the eye of the body, but, after reflection, the eye of reason.

I will now give a very brief account of the three great classes of coral-reefs; namely, Atolls, Barrier, and Fringing- reefs, and will explain my views [11] on their formation. Almost every voyager who has crossed the Pacific has expressed his unbounded astonishment at the lagoon-islands, or as I shall for the future call them by their Indian name of atolls, and has attempted some explanation. Even as long ago as the year 1605, Pyrard de Laval well exclaimed, "C'est

[picture]

une merveille de voir chacun de ces atollons, environne d'un grand banc de pierre tout autour, n'y ayant point d'artifice humain." The accompanying sketch of Whitsunday Island in the Pacific, copied from, Capt. Beechey's admirable Voyage, gives but a faint idea of the singular aspect of an atoll: it is one of the smallest size, and has its narrow islets united together in a ring.

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