Fiji. For nine months in the year the cool south-east tradewinds make one doubt the reading of the thermometer, which ranges from 55° to 95°, with a pretty regular daily average of 75° to 80°. The rainfall varies in different localities, the leeward side of the large islands being much drier than the windward. It is estimated to average 100 to 110 inches per The average velocity of the wind at Bua in Vanua Levu in 1878 was 15 to 20 miles an hour. In addition to the islands named, the principal centres for white men are Taviuni, Koro, Vanua Balavu (of which the capital is Loma Loma), Mango, Lakemba, and Chichia.

annum.

The population may be set down at 118,000 natives, 2000 Europeans or whites, and 2000 Polynesians, coolies, etc.

CHAPTER III.

CORAL AND CORAL REEFS.

THE formations of coral in the Polynesian Groups are produced by the ceaseless work of the zoophytic animals called polyparia. Dr. Dana describes the polyp as an aquatic animal of the radiata type, having in general a cylindrical body, at one extremity of which is a mouth surrounded by one or more series of arms or tentacles.'

The water of the sea holds in solution a great quantity of calcareous or lime matter, which is absorbed for their sustenance by these little tenants of the deep; and as the coral and shells remain after their occupants are dead and decomposed, the bed of the ocean is constantly receiving additions from this source; shells also, and the teeth and skeletons of fishes, contribute some portion to the ever-growing stock. These relics accumulate in large masses, which rise to the surface in moderate

depths of water, and which also form islands, on which the usual plants and animals exist. The shapes of these coral formations are various-flat, tubular, oval, and irregularly rounded at their circumference and are almost invariably supported by an under-water elevation, such as extinct volcanoes or underlying rock. It is thought that these aggregations are stratified rocks of limestone, and that all calcareous formations have proceeded from the putrid bodies of fish.

Polyparia are composed of two separate parts: an external living fleshy envelope bearing and containing polypi, and an internal firm, solid, and inorganic axis. The base of the attachment is large, the stem fixed, the branches subdivided, calcareous, and mostly jointed. The animals inhabit the concretions in minute cells, and draw their nourishment through an aperture.

The formation of the coral-reefs consists of the shells of myriads of these little beings, resembling plants without leaves. Coral itself is, in fact, an animal growing in plant-like form, and seems to be a connecting link between the animal and vegetable kingdoms.

The sea is found to be deficient in lime-salts near the islands of the South Pacific. Chemically the common reef corals consist almost wholly of carbonate of lime, the same substance, in fact, which constitutes ordinary limestone. The currents of the Pacific are constantly bringing new supplies of sea-water (on which the tiny insects live) over the growing coral beds, and the whole ocean is thus engaged in contributing to their nutriment.

The coral-reefs around the islands are guardians of the low lands against the incursions of the sea. In Fiji they are often miles from the shore, the water inside the reef being usually calm, while that without, if there be anything like a breeze, is

immediately agitated. One of the most beautiful sights in the Pacific is to watch the big white-crested breakers dash themselves against these reefs.

Sometimes a reef in Polynesia is thirty feet wide, and the rolling billows of the Pacific-extending occasionally in an unbroken line for a mile along the reef-are arrested by it, and, curving towards the shore, form a graceful liquid arch, which glitters in the sunlight. The beautiful water-structure then disappears with a loud and hollow roar into the reef, only to be succeeded by another and another.

In every reef there is a provision for the ingress and egress of craft by openings in the lines of coral, and the traveller will hardly fail to notice that these openings are almost invariably opposite some valley where streams of fresh water flow from the mountain.

The tallest cocoa-nut trees grow on small islands. In some of the breaches in the reef they serve as lighthouses or beacons, and show the native fisherman where he can get shelter and replenish his stock of fresh water. These islands have a coral formation, and their origin is doubtlessly due to the decaying vegetation or wood dashed in by the sea, and seeds washed to the reef from the beach.

Dr. Darwin divides coral-reefs into three classes: an atoll (or a sort of ring of coral surrounding a lagoon), which only differs from a barrier-reef in encircling no land; while a barrierreef differs from a fringing-reef in being placed at a much greater distance from the land, in consequence of the probable inclination of its submarine foundation, and in the presence of a deep-water lagoon-like space within the reef. I have before remarked that the polyparia cannot exist at much more than a hundred feet below the surface. There can be no difficulty respecting the foundations on which fringing-reefs are based;

whereas with barrier-reefs and atolls there is a great difficulty on this head. In barrier-reefs, from the improbability of the rock of the coast, or of banks of sediment, extending in every instance so far seaward within the required depth in which the polyparia can work; and in atolls, from the immensity of the spaces over which they are interspersed (they spread, in a rough line, 4500 miles in length), and the apparent necessity for believing that they are all supported on mountain summits, which although rising very near to the surface level of the sea, in no one instance go above it.

Dr. Darwin considers this a most improbable supposition, and holds that there is but one alternative-the prolonged subsidence of the foundations on which the atolls were primarily based, together with the upward growth of the reef-constructing corals. On this supposition, every difficulty vanishes. Fringing-reefs are thus converted into barrier-reefs; and barrierreefs, when encircling islands, are thus converted into atolls, the moment the last pinnacle of land sinks beneath the surface of the sea.

By this hypothesis alone can be explained the existence of breaches opposite valleys, to which I have already alluded. Little direct proof of subsidence can, however, be found in the case of atolls and barrier-reefs, whereas the presence of upraised marine bodies on the fringed coasts show that these have been elevated. The recent finding of fossil coral at a considerable height in the island of Viti Levu would, in my opinion, indicate that the lands encircled by the barrier-reefs were elevated in like manner. This coral was found by a friend of mine in 1876, during the campaign against the cannibals.

The same authority goes on to say: 'We thus see vast areas rising with volcanic matter every now and then, and bursting forth through the vents or fissures with which they are tra

versed. We see other wide spaces slowly sinking without any volcanic outburst, and we may well feel sure that this sinking must have been immense in amount as well as area, thus to have buried over the broad face of the ocean every one of those mountains above which atolls now stand like monuments marking the place of their former existence.'

Thus on the island-mountain of Taviuni we find the remains of an extinct volcano. Taviuni has perhaps reached its elevation; while, on the other hand, the fringed-reef Samoan Islands are in the immediate vicinity of several submarine volcanoes. About fourteen years ago the water to the eastern end of the Samoan (or Navigators') Islands was seen to be much agitated; a dense mass of steam rose from the surface, and the water was found to be boiling hot.

With the subsidence of the atoll islands in the Pacific comes a proportionate rising of other parts of the world, notably on the western coast of South America, which forms the greatest volcanic chain in the world; and Dr. Darwin states that not only is this rising of the South American coast a well-known geological fact, but that certain islands to the north-west of the Pacific, especially some of the Philippines and Loo-choo Islands, have extensive strata of a modern date.

It has been noticed that the action of the submarine volcanoes and consequent elevation of the earth has been followed by that tremendous agitation of the water called a 'tidal wave.' This great heaving of the bed of the ocean is felt all over the Pacific, north to south, east to west, and especially on the coast of South America. It sweeps away some of the atolls and affects the fringed-reef groups, while it is hardly noticeable in those possessed of barrier-reefs.

Thus in May, 1877, when I was sailing in a cutter in the Fiji Group, there was a terrible wave which swept away thousands