The red colour (4) represents reefs fringing the land quite closely where the sea is deep, and where the bottom is gently inclined extending to a moderate distance from it, but not having a deep-water moat or lagoon-like space parallel to the shore. It must be remembered that fringing-reefs are frequently breached in front of rivers and valleys by deepish channels, where mud has been deposited. A space of thirty miles in width has been coloured round or in front of the reefs of each class, in order that the colours might be conspicuous on the appended map, which is reduced to so small a scale.
The vermillion spots, and streaks (1) represent volcanoes now in action, or historically known to have been so. They are chiefly laid down from Von Buch’s work on the Canary Islands; and my reasons for making a few alterations are given in the note below.[[2]]
[2] I have also made considerable use of the geological part of Berghaus’ “Physical Atlas.” Beginning at the eastern side of the Pacific, I have added to the number of the volcanoes in the southern part of the Cordillera, and have coloured Juan Fernandez according to observations collected during the voyage of the Beagle (“Geol. Trans.,” vol. v, p. 601). I have added a volcano to Albemarle Island, one of the Galapagos Archipelago (the author’s “Journal of Researches,” p. 457). In the Sandwich group there are no active volcanoes, except at Hawaii; but the Rev. W. Ellis informs me, there are streams of lava apparently modern on Maui, having a very recent appearance, which can be traced to the craters whence they flowed. The same gentleman informs me, that there is no reason to believe that any active volcano exists in the Society Archipelago; nor are there any known in the Samoa or Navigator group, although some of the streams of lava and craters there appear recent. In the Friendly group, the Rev. J. Williams says (“Narrative of Missionary Enterprise,” p. 29) that Toofoa and Proby Islands are active volcanoes. I infer from Hamilton’s “Voyage in the Pandora” (p. 95), that Proby Island is synonymous with Onouafou, but I have not ventured to colour it. There can be no doubt respecting Toofoa, and Captain Edwards (Von Buch, p. 386) found the lava of recent eruption at Amargura still smoking. Berghaus marks four active volcanoes actually within the Friendly group; but I do not know on what authority: I may mention that Maurelle describes Latte as having a burnt-up appearance: I have marked only Toofoa and Amargura. South of the New Hebrides lies Matthews Rock, which is drawn and described as an active crater in the “Voyage of the Astrolabe.” Between it and the volcano on the eastern side of New Zealand, lies Brimstone Island, which from the high temperature of the water in the crater, may be ranked as active (Berghaus “Vorbemerk,” II Lief. S. 56). Malte Brun, vol. xii, p. 231, says that there is a volcano near port St. Vincent in New Caledonia. I believe this to be an error, arising from a smoke seen on the opposite coast by Cook (“Second Voyage,” vol. ii, p. 23) which smoke went out at night. The Mariana Islands, especially the northern ones, contain many craters (see Freycinet’s “Hydrog. Descript.”) which are not active. Von Buch, however, states (p. 462) on the authority of La Peyrouse, that there are no less than seven volcanoes between these islands and Japan. Gemelli Creri (Churchill’s “Collect.” vol. iv, p. 458), says there are two active volcanoes in latitude 23° 30′, and in latitude 24°: but I have not coloured them. From the statements in Beechey’s “Voyage” (p. 518, 4to edit.) I have coloured one in the northern part of the Bonin group. M. S. Julien has clearly made out from Chinese manuscripts not very ancient (“Comptes Rendus,” 1840, p. 832), that there are two active volcanoes on the eastern side of Formosa. In Torres Straits, on Cap Island (9° 48′ S., 142° 39′ E.) a volcano was seen burning with great violence in 1793 by Captain Bampton (see Introduction to Flinders’ “Voyage,” p. 41). Mr. M’Clelland (Report of Committee for investigating Coal in India, p. 39) has shown that the volcanic band passing through Barren Island must be extended northwards. It appears by an old chart, that Cheduba was once an active volcano (see also Silliman’s North American Journal, vol. xxxviii, p. 385). In Berghaus’ “Phys. Atlas,” 1840, No. 7 of Geological Part, a volcano on the coast of Pondicherry is said to have burst forth in 1757. Ordinaire (“Hist. Nat. des Volcans,” p. 218) says that there is one at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, but I have not coloured it, as he gives no particulars. A volcano in Amsterdam, or St. Paul’s, in the southern part of the Indian Ocean, has been seen (Naut. Mag. 1838, p. 842) in action. Dr. J. Allan, of Forres, informs me in a letter, that when he was at Joanna, he saw at night flames apparently volcanic, issuing from the chief Comoro Island, and that the Arabs assured him that they were volcanic, adding that the volcano burned more during the wet season. I have marked this as a volcano, though with some hesitation, on account of the possibility of the flame arising from gaseous sources.
The uncoloured coasts consist, first and chiefly, of those, where there are no coral-reefs, or such small portions as to be quite insignificant. Secondly, of those coasts where there are reefs, but where the sea is very shallow, for in this case the reefs generally lie far from the land, and become very irregular, in their forms: where they have not become irregular, they have been coloured. thirdly, if I had the means of ascertaining the fact, I should not colour a reef merely coating the edges of a submarine crater, or of a level submerged bank; for such superficial formations differ essentially, even when not in external appearance, from reefs whose foundations as well as superficies have been wholly formed by the growth of coral. Fourthly, in the Red Sea, and within some parts of the East Indian Archipelago (if the imperfect charts of the latter can be trusted), there are many scattered reefs, of small size, represented in the chart by mere dots, which rise out of deep water: these cannot be arranged under either of the three classes: in the Red Sea, however, some of these little reefs, from their position, seem once to have formed parts of a continuous barrier. There exist, also, scattered in the open ocean, some linear and irregularly formed strips of coral-reef, which, as shown in the last chapter, are probably allied in their origin to atolls; but as they do not belong to that class, they have not been coloured; they are very few in number and of insignificant dimensions. Lastly, some reefs are left uncoloured from the want of information respecting them, and some because they are of an intermediate structure between the barrier and fringing classes. The value of the map is lessened, in proportion to the number of reefs which I have been obliged to leave uncoloured, although, in a theoretical point of view, few of them present any great difficulty: but their number is not very great, as will be found by comparing the map with the statements in the Appendix. I have experienced more difficulty in colouring fringing-reefs than in colouring barrier-reefs, as the former, from their much less dimensions, have less attracted the attention of navigators. As I have had to seek my information from all kinds of sources, and often from indirect ones, I do not venture to hope that the map is free from many errors. Nevertheless, I trust it will give an approximately correct view of the general distribution of the coral-reefs over the whole world (with the exception of some fringing-reefs on the coast of Brazil, not included within the limits of the map), and of their arrangement into the three great classes, which, though necessarily very imperfect from the nature of the objects classified, have been adopted by most voyagers. I may further remark, that the dark blue colour represents land entirely composed of coral-rock; the pale blue, land with a wide and thick border of coral-rock; and the red, a mere narrow fringe of coral-rock.
Looking now at the map under the theoretical point of view indicated in the last chapter, the two blue tints signify that the foundations of the reefs thus coloured have subsided to a considerable amount, at a slower rate than that of the upward growth of the corals, and that probably in many cases they are still subsiding. The red signifies that the shores which support fringing-reefs have not subsided (at least to any considerable amount, for the effects of a subsidence on a small scale would in no case be distinguishable); but that they have remained nearly stationary since the period when they first became fringed by reefs; or that they are now rising or have been upraised, with new lines of reefs successively formed on them: these latter alternatives are obviously implied, as newly formed lines of shore, after elevations of the land, would be in the same state with respect to the growth of fringing-reefs, as stationary coasts. If during the prolonged subsidence of a shore, coral-reefs grew for the first time on it, or if an old barrier-reef were destroyed and submerged, and new reefs became attached to the land, these would necessarily at first belong to the fringing class, and, therefore, be coloured red, although the coast was sinking: but I have no reason to believe, that from this source of error, any coast has been coloured wrongly with respect to movement indicated. Well characterised atolls and encircling barrier-reefs, where several occur in a group, or a single barrier-reef if of large dimensions, leave scarcely any doubt on the mind respecting the movement by which they have been produced; and even a small amount of subsequent elevation is soon betrayed. The evidence from a single atoll or a single encircling barrier-reef, must be received with some caution, for the former may possibly be based upon a submerged crater or bank, and the latter on a submerged margin of sediment, or of worn-down rock. From these remarks we may with greater certainty infer that the spaces, especially the larger ones, tinted blue in the map, have subsided, than that the red spaces have remained stationary, or have been upraised.
On the grouping of the different classes of reefs.—Having made these preliminary remarks, I will consider first how far the grouping of the different kinds of coral-islands and reefs is corroborative of the truth of the theory. A glance at the map shows that the reefs, coloured blue and red, produced under widely different conditions, are not indiscriminately mixed together. Atolls and barrier-reefs, on the other hand, as may be seen by the two blue tints, generally lie near each other; and this would be the natural result of both having been produced during the subsidence of the areas in which they stand. Thus, the largest group of encircled islands is that of the Society Archipelago; and these islands are surrounded by atolls, and only separated by a narrow space from the large group of Low atolls. In the midst of the Caroline atolls, there are three fine encircled islands. The northern point of the barrier-reef of New Caledonia seems itself, as before remarked, to form a complete large atoll. The great Australian barrier is described as including both atolls and small encircled islands. Captain King[[3]] mentions many atoll-formed and encircling coral-reefs, some of which lie within the barrier, and others may be said (for instance between lat. 16° and 13°) to form part of it. Flinders[[4]] has described an atoll-formed reef in lat. 10°, seven miles long and from one to three broad, resembling a boot in shape, with apparently very deep water within. Eight miles westward of this, and forming part of the barrier, lie the Murray Islands, which are high and are encircled. In the Corallian Sea, between the two great barriers of Australia and New Caledonia, there are many low islets and coral-reefs, some of which are annular, or horse-shoe shaped. Observing the smallness of the scale of the map, the parallels of latitude being nine hundred miles apart, we see that none of the large groups of reefs and islands supposed to have been produced by long-continued subsidence, lie near extensive lines of coast coloured red, which are supposed to have remained stationary since the growth of their reefs, or to have been upraised and new lines of reefs formed on them. Where the red and blue circles do occur near each other, I am able, in several instances, to show that there have been oscillations of level, subsidence having preceded the elevation of the red spots; and elevation having preceded the subsidence of the blue spots: and in this case the juxtaposition of reefs belonging to the two great types of structure is little surprising. We may, therefore, conclude that the proximity in the same areas of the two classes of reefs, which owe their origin to the subsidence of the earth’s crust, and their separation from those formed during its stationary or uprising condition, holds good to the full extent, which might have been anticipated by our theory.
[3] Sailing directions, appended to vol. ii of his “Surveying Voyage to Australia.”
[4] “Voyage to Terra Australis,” vol. ii, p. 336.
As groups of atolls have originated in the upward growth, at each fresh sinking of the land, of those reefs which primarily fringed the shores of one great island, or of several smaller ones; so we might expect that these rings of coral-rock, like so many rude outline charts, will still retain some traces of the general form, or at least general range, of the land, round which they were first modelled. That this is the case with the atolls in the Southern Pacific as far as their range is concerned, seems highly probable, when we observe that the three principal groups are directed in north-west and south-east lines, and that nearly all the land in the S. Pacific ranges in this same direction; namely, N. Western Australia, New Caledonia, the northern half of New Zealand, the New Hebrides, Saloman, Navigator, Society, Marquesas, and Austral archipelagoes: in the Northern Pacific, the Caroline atolls abut against the north-west line of the Marshall atolls, much in the same manner as the east and west line of islands from Ceram to New Britain do on New Ireland: in the Indian Ocean the Laccadive and Maldiva atolls extend nearly parallel to the western and mountainous coast of India. In most respects, there is a perfect resemblance with ordinary islands in the grouping of atolls and in their form: thus the outline of all the larger groups is elongated; and the greater number of the individual atolls are elongated in the same direction with the group, in which they stand. The Chagos group is less elongated than is usual with other groups, and the individual atolls in it are likewise but little elongated; this is strikingly seen by comparing them with the neighbouring Maldiva atolls. In the Marshall and Maldiva archipelagoes, the atolls are ranged in two parallel lines, like the mountains in a great double mountain-chain. Some of the atolls, in the larger archipelagoes, stand so near to each other, and have such an evident relationship in form, that they compose little sub-groups: in the Caroline Archipelago, one such sub-group consists of Pouynipete, a lofty island encircled by a barrier-reef, and separated by a channel only four miles and a half wide from Andeema atoll, with a second atoll a little further off. In all these respects an examination of a series of charts will show how perfectly groups of atolls resemble groups of common islands.
On the direct evidence of the blue spaces in the map having subsided during the upward growth of the reefs so coloured, and of the red spaces having remained stationary, or having been upraised.—With respect to subsidence, I have shown in the last chapter, that we cannot expect to obtain in countries inhabited only by semi-civilised races, demonstrative proofs of a movement, which invariably tends to conceal its own evidence. But on the coral-islands supposed to have been produced by subsidence, we have proofs of changes in their external appearance—of a round of decay and renovation—of the last vestiges of land on some—of its first commencement on others: we hear of storms desolating them to the astonishment of their inhabitants: we know by the great fissures with which some of them are traversed, and by the earthquakes felt under others, that subterranean disturbances of some kind are in progress. These facts, if not directly connected with subsidence, as I believe they are, at least show how difficult it would be to discover proofs of such movement by ordinary means. At Keeling atoll, however, I have described some appearances, which seem directly to show that subsidence did take place there during the late earthquakes. Vanikoro, according to Chevalier Dillon,[[5]] is often violently shaken by earthquakes, and there, the unusual depth of the channel between the shore and the reef,—the almost entire absence of islets on the reef,—its wall-like structure on the inner side, and the small quantity of low alluvial land at the foot of the mountains, all seem to show that this island has not remained long at its present level, with the lagoon-channel subjected to the accumulation of sediment, and the reef to the wear and tear of the breakers. At the Society Archipelago, on the other hand, where a slight tremor is only rarely felt, the shoaliness of the lagoon-channels round some of the islands, the number of islets formed on the reefs of others, and the broad belt of low land at the foot of the mountains, indicate that, although there must have been great subsidence to have produced the barrier-reefs, there has since elapsed a long stationary period.[[6]]