The island is the flat summit of a submarine mountain more than 15,000 ft. high, the depth of the platform from which it rises being about 14,000 ft., and its height above the sea being upwards of 1000 ft. The submarine slopes are steep, and within 20 m. of the shore the depth of the sea reaches 2400 fathoms. It consists of a central plateau descending to the water in three terraces, each with its “tread” and “rise.” The shore terrace descends by a steep cliff to the sea, forming the “rise” of a submarine “tread” in the form of fringing reef which surrounds the island and is never uncovered, even at low water, except in Flying Fish Cove, where the only landing-place exists. The central plateau is a plain whose surface presents “rounded, flat-topped hills and low ridges and reefs of limestone,” with narrow intervening valleys. On its northern aspect this plateau has a raised rim having all the appearances of being once the margin of an atoll. On these rounded hills occurs the deposit of phosphate of lime which gives the island its commercial value. The phosphatic deposit has doubtless been produced by the long-continued action of a thick bed of sea-fowl dung, which converted the carbonate of the underlying limestone into phosphate. The flat summit is formed by a succession of limestones—all deposited in shallow water—from the Eocene (or Oligocene) up to recent deposits in the above-mentioned atoll with islands on its reef. The geological sequence of events appears to have been the following:—After the deposition of the Eocene (or Oligocene) limestone—which reposes upon a floor of basalts and trachytes—basalts and basic tuffs were ejected, over which, during a period of very slow depression, orbitoidal limestones of Miocene age—which seem to make up the great mass of the island—were deposited; then elapsed a long period of rest, during which the atoll condition existed and the guano deposit was formed; from then down to the present time there has succeeded a series of sea-level subsidences, resulting in the formation of the terraces and the accummulation of the detritus now seen on the first inland cliff, the old submarine slope of the island. The occurrence of such a series of Tertiary deposits appears to be unknown elsewhere. The whole series was evidently deposited in shallow water on the summit of a submarine volcano standing in its present isolation, and round which the ocean floor has probably altered but a few hundred feet since the Eocene age. Thus although the rocks of the southern coast of Java in their general character and succession resemble those of Christmas Island, there lies between them an abysmal trough 18,000 ft. in depth, which renders it scarcely possible that they were deposited in a continuous area, for such an enormous depression of the sea-floor could hardly have occurred since Miocene times without involving also Christmas Island. One of the main purposes of the exploration was to obtain light on the question of the foundation of atolls.
The flora consists of 129 species of angiosperms, 1 Cycas, 22 ferns, and a few mosses, lichens and fungi, 17 of which are endemic, while a considerable number—not specifically distinct—form local varieties nearly all presenting Indo-Malayan affinities, as do the single Cycas, the ferns and the cryptogams. As to its fauna, the island contains 319 species of animals—54 only being vertebrates—145 of which are endemic. A very remarkable distributional fact in regard to them, and one not yet fully explained, is that a large number show affinity with species in the Austro-Malayan rather than in the Indo-Malayan, their nearer, region. The ocean currents, the trade-winds blowing from the Australian mainland, and north-westerly storms from the Malayan islands, are no doubt responsible for the introduction of many, but not all, of these Malayan and Australasian species. The climate is healthy, the temperature varying from 75° to 84° F. The prevailing wind is the S.E. trade, which blows the greater part of the year. The rainfall in the wet season is heavy, but not excessive, and during the dry season the ground is refreshed with occasional showers and heavy dews. Malarial fever is not prevalent, and it is interesting to note that there are no swamps or standing waters on the island.
It is not known when and by whom the island was discovered, but under the name of Moni it appears on a Dutch chart of 1666. It was first visited in 1688 by Dampier, who found it uninhabited. In 1886 Captain Maclear of H.M.S. “Flying Fish,” having discovered an anchorage in a bay which he named Flying Fish Cove, landed a party and made a small but interesting collection of the flora and fauna. In the following year Captain Aldrich on H.M.S. “Egeria” visited it, accompanied by Mr J.J. Lister, F.R.S., who formed a larger biological and mineralogical collection. Among the rocks then obtained and submitted to Sir John Murray for examination there were detected specimens of nearly pure phosphate of lime, a discovery which eventually led, in June 1888, to the annexation of the island to the British crown. Soon afterwards a small settlement was established in Flying Fish Cove by Mr G. Clunies Ross, the owner of the Keeling Islands, which lie about 750 m. to the westward. In 1891 Mr Ross and Sir John Murray were granted a lease, but on the further discovery of phosphatic deposits they disposed of their rights in 1897 to a company. In the same year a thorough scientific exploration was made, at the cost of Sir John Murray, by Mr C.W. Andrews, of the British Museum.
See C.W. Andrews, A Monograph of Christmas Island (Indian Ocean), (London, 1900).
CHRISTODORUS, of Coptos in Egypt, epic poet, flourished during the reign of Anastasius I. (A.D. 491-518). According to Suidas, he was the author of Πάτρια, accounts of the foundation of various cities; Λυδιακά, the mythical history of Lydia; Ίσαυρικά, the conquest of Isauria by Anastasius; three books of epigrams; and many other works. In addition to two epigrams (Anthol. Pal. vii. 697, 698) we possess a description of eighty statues of gods, heroes and famous men and women in the gymnasium of Zeuxippus at Constantinople. This ἔκφρασις, consisting of 416 hexameters, forms the second book of the Palatine Anthology. The writer’s chief models are Homer and Nonnus, whom he follows closely in the structure of his hexameters. Opinions are divided as to the merits of the work. Some critics regard it as of great importance for the history of art and a model of description; others consider it valueless, alike from the historical, mythological and archaeological points of view.
See F. Baumgarten, De Christodoro poëta Thebano (1881), and his article in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie, iii. 2 (1899); W. Christ, Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur (1898).
CHRISTOPHER, SAINT (Christophorus, Christoferus), a saint honoured in the Roman Catholic (25th of July) and Orthodox Eastern (9th of May) Churches, the patron of ferrymen. Nothing that is authentic is known about him. He appears to have been originally a pagan and to have been born in Syria. He was baptized by Babylas, bishop of Antioch; preached with much success in Lycia; and was martyred about A.D. 250 during the persecution under the emperor Decius.[1] Round this small nucleus of possibility, however, a vast mass of legendary matter gradually collected. All accounts agree that he was of great stature and singularly handsome, and that this helped him not a little in his evangelistic work. But according to a story reproduced in the New Uniat Anthology of Arcudius, and mentioned in Basil’s Monologue, Christopher was originally a hideous man-eating ogre, with a dog’s face, and only received his human semblance, with his Christian name, at baptism. Most of his astounding miracles are of the ordinary type. He thrusts his staff into the ground; whereupon it sprouts into a date palm, and thousands are converted. Courtesans sent to seduce him are turned by his mere aspect into Christians and martyrs. The Roman governor is confounded by his insensibility to the most refined and ingenious tortures. He is roasted over a slow fire and basted with boiling oil, but tells his tormentors that by the grace of Jesus Christ he feels nothing. When at last, in despair, they cut off his head, he had converted 48,000 people.
The more conspicuous of these legends are included in the Mozarabic Breviary and Missal, and are given in the thirty-third sermon of Peter Damien, but the best-known story is that which is given in the Golden Legend of Jacopus de Voragine. According to this, Christopher—or rather Reprobus, as he was then called—was a giant of vast stature who was in search of a man stronger than himself, whom he might serve. He left the service of the king of Canaan because the king feared the devil, and that of the devil because the devil feared the Cross. He was converted by a hermit; but as he had neither the gift of fasting nor that of prayer, he decided to devote himself to a work of charity, and set himself to carry wayfarers over a bridgeless river. One day a little child asked to be taken across, and Christopher took him on his shoulder. When half way over the stream he staggered under what seemed to him a crushing weight, but he reached the other side and then upbraided the child for placing him in peril. “Had I borne the whole world on my back,” he said, “it could not have weighed heavier than thou!” “Marvel not!” the child replied, “for thou hast borne upon thy back the world and him who created it!” It was this story that gave Christopher his immense popularity throughout Western Christendom.