File:Corals and coral islands (1874) (17489246793).jpg

Title: Corals and coral islands
Identifier: alr2577.0001.001.umich.edu
Year: 1874 (1870s)
Authors: Dana, James Dwight, 1813-1895
Subjects: Coral reefs and islands; Corals
Publisher: New York, Dodd & Mead
Contributing Library: University of Michigan
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Michigan

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Text Appearing Before Image:
162 CORALS AND CORAL ISLANDS. of verdure are spread out before the eye, and a scene of more interest can scarcely be imagined. The surf, beating loud and heavy along the margin of the reef, presents a strange contrast to the prospect beyond,—the white coral beach, the massy foliage of the grove, and the embosomed lake with its tiny islets. The color of the lagoon water is often as blue as the ocean, although but ten or twenty fathoms deep ; yet shades of green and yellow are intermingled, where patches of sand or coral-knolls are near the surface; and the green is a delicate apple-shade, quite unlike the ordinary muddy tint of shallow waters.
Text Appearing After Image:
CORAIi ISLAND, OR ATOLL. ThB belt of verdure, though sometimes continuous around the lagoon, is usually broken into islets separated by varying intervals of bare reef; and through one or more of these in- tervals, a ship-channel often exists opening into the lagoon. The larger coral islands are thus a string of islets along a line of reef. These laTOon islands are called atolls, a word of Maldive origin. The king of the Maldives bears the high sounding title of " Ibrahim Sultan, King of the thirteen Atollons and twelve thousand Isles (see page 189); which'Capt. W. F. W. Owen, R. N., says is no exaggeration. In the larger atolls, the waters within look like the ocean, and are similarly roughened by the wind, though not to the

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