Year: 1879

Some of the Marvellous Things to be Seen


i'm Old Oceans Depahs.


Traders Magazine.


Of all the wonderful sights in this
land of wonders, there are none greater
than the wonders of the reef when the
tides low. The ideas of coral which
people have who have never seen it in
it's living state are generally erroneous
They know it as a beautifully white
ornament under a glass shade, or in dell
icste pink branches in their jewelry, and
they imagine living coral is like these.
Their ideas are helped along by the com.
mon misnomer of trees and branches, as
applied to coral. | have never seen it
in the South Sea islands, but through
out the eastern seas the most common
variety takes animated form, not un-
ike the large fungi to be met with any
summers day in an English wood grow
ing out of the older trees. Flat, circus
lar tables of dingy brown, growing one
over another, with spaces under each.
These attain great size, extending for
yards without break, so that the bot
tom Of the sea is perfectly level.
This kind is much sought after by
the lime burners. Another species
grows in detached bosses, like
thick stemmed plants which the
gardener has trimmed round the top.
These clumps grow out of the sand, and
stand up in dull brown against the
white flooring. A third pattern is spiked
like stags' horns tangled together, and is
of diDger brown than the first; its
spikes collect the drifting weeds and it's
appearance is consequently untidy.
There are scores of varieties of corals
and madrepores, but the three men,
toned are those which principally make
up the mass which is ever growing under
the still waters inside the reef. At
Maheburg the reef is distant seven miles
from the shore, and the whole of this
great lagoon is in process filing up by
coral, There are one or two holes, left
capriciously, and channel which the
river has cut to the reef, which it
pierces in what is locally called "a
pass" Everywhere else the bottom is
only few feet under water, and is
always slowly rising. The various cor
ais, the patches of silver sand, the Deep
winding channel, lend each tint to the
water--sapphire blue, where it is deepest,
sea>green with emerald hecks, or cerulean
blue shot with opaiine tiHts, in the shal.
lows. The reef is solid wall, shelving
toward the shore, absolutely perpen-
dicular toward the ocean, and varies in
width from twenty to one hundred
yards Against the outer face the roll
lers rage incessantly. Swell follows
swell, smoothly and regularly. There is
no hurry, for here there is no shelving
bottom to keep them back. On they
come, separating their ink-blue masses
from the tumble of the ocean, rearing
aloft their crests, like living things
anxious to try their strength, and tal
with a roar on its edge as it stands up to
meet them. You can stand within
few feet Of the practically bottomless sea
and watch them tumble, with the
water no further than your knees. as
the surge of their onward rush carries
across the reef To stand SO and
watch them coming on appears, to one
not used to the sights, to court destruc-
ton the wave is so vast, its crest rising
higher as it advances shuts out the sea
beyond, nothing can be seen but wall
of water rolling on; its strength is so
apparent, so irresistible, and the pause
it appears to take as the top curls over
seems 10 check your breath. The rocks
and lumps of dead coral with which
storms have strewed the reef are big gh
and dry the pools of limpid water in
the holes sink down and drain away,
their surface CLASSY, and their depths
full of color and strange,shaped living
things, then the roller breaks and sends
q surge of water Kissing by, and the reef
has sunk beneath the foam and bubbling
water.