On Coral Reefs and Islands |
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accumulations action afford animal Apamama appears Astræas atoll barrier reefs basaltic beach Berkeley Berkeley bottom breakers calcareous CALIFORNIA LIBRARY cape cemented channels character coast compact coral islands coral plantation coral reefs coral rock coral zoophytes currents Darwin deep deposits depth detritus distance east enclosed entrance extent facts Feejees feet high feet in height formation fragments fringing reef gradually Group growing coral growth of coral harbor high islands high tide hundred feet inches inner reefs islets Kauai lagoon land layers Lebu limestone Maldives margin masses Metia Moreover nearly Oahu observed ocean outer reefs Pacific patches Paumotus polyps Porites Raraka reef-grounds reefs and islands remarkable Salomon Islands Samoa sand shallow shells shore platform side six feet slopes species square miles streams subsidence surface Tahiti Tarawan tion Tongatabu UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Upolu Vanua Levu vegetation volcanic waves wide width zoophytes
Popular passages
Page 70 - There, with a light and easy motion, The fan-coral sweeps through the clear, deep sea ; And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean Are bending like corn on the upland lea ; And life, in rare and beautiful forms, Is sporting amid those bowers of stone, And is safe when the wrathful spirit of storms Has made the top of the wave his own...
Page 46 - How much of the poetry or literature of Europe would be intelligible to persons whose ideas had expanded only to the limits of a coral island ; who had never conceived of a surface of land above half a mile in breadth, — of a slope higher than a beach, — of a change of seasons beyond a variation in the prevalence of rams? What elevation in morals should be expected upon a contracted islet, so readily overpeopled that threatened starvation drives to infanticide, and 19 tends to cultivate the extremest...
Page 71 - when I saw it striking the stone, would wholly immerse or bury it out of sight, and the run extended up to the grass line above it, making a perpendicular rise of from 39 to 40 feet above the high water level. On the incoming waves striking the stone, we could see this monstrous mass of upwards of...
Page 47 - Some writers, scouting the idea that reefs of rocks can be due in any way to " animalcules," talk of electrical forces, the first and last appeal of ignorance. Others call in the fishes of the seas, suggesting that they are the masons, and work with their teeth in the accumulation of the calcareous material. Very many of those who discourse quite learnedly on zoophytes and reefs, imagine that the polyps are mechanical workers, heaping up these piles of rock by their united labors ; and science still...
Page 51 - The cactus, the lichen clinging to the rock, and the fungus in all its varieties, have their numerous representatives. Besides these forms imitating vegetation, there are gracefully modelled vases, some of which are three or four feet in diameter, made up of a network of branches and branchlets and sprigs of flowers. There are also solid coral hemispheres, like domes among the vases and shrubbery, occasionally ten, or even twenty feet in diameter, whose symmetrical surface is gorgeously decked with...
Page 43 - The cocoanut and pandanus are, in general, the only products of the vegetable kingdom afforded for their sustenance, and fish and crabs from the reefs their only animal food. Scanty, too, is the supply ; and infanticide is resorted to in...
Page 45 - ... barely enough for household purposes — no streams, nor mountains, nor hills? How much of the poetry and literature of Europe would be intelligible to persons whose ideas had expanded only to the limits of a...
Page 71 - It has been shown that coral plantations, from which reefs proceed, do not grow in the "calm and still" depths of the ocean. They are to be found amid the very waves, and extend but little below a hundred feet, which is far within the reach of the sea's heavier commotions.* Here is an agent which is not without its effects. The enormous masses of uptorn rock found on many of the islands may give some idea of the force of the lifting wave ; and there are examples on record, to be found in various...
Page 47 - Zoophytes. 1. Structure and Growth of Zoophytes. A singular degree of obscurity has been thrown around the growth of coral zoophytes and coral formations, through the various speculations which have been offered in place of facts ; and to the present day, the subject is seldom mentioned without the qualifying adjective mysterious expressed or understood. Some writers, scouting the idea that reefs of rocks can be due in any way to "animalcules," talk of electrical forces, the first and the last appeal...
Page 48 - ... than bone-making in ourselves. And, again, it is not a collection of cells into which the coral animals may withdraw for concealment, any more than the skeleton of a dog is its house or cell ; for every part of the coral of a polyp in most reef-making species is enclosed within the polyp where it was formed by the secreting process.* It is important that this point should be thoroughly understood, and fully appreciated.