328 MALDIVE ISLANDS 27 and 73 50 . 1 The strange appearance which this group assumes in the old maps of the 16th and 17th centuries (see fig. 2, from Mappemonde, cited on p. 329) is entirely inaccurate in detail, but hardly so singular as the reality exhibited by modern surveys. The archipelago is in some respects one of the most dis tinctly typical examples of a great aggregation of coral islands; indeed the technical name adopted by modern science for the annular coral formation which they exhibit (viz., atoll) has been taken from the language of these islands. 2 For Mr Darwin s theory of such formations see vol. vi. p. 378. Objections to this have recently been raised by Mr John Murray, but these do not affect the description. 3 The Maldive archipelago in plan may be compared to a chain suspended from a peg, each link of which chain is an irregularly elliptical chaplet of islets, the greater axes of these quasi-ellipses varying from about 90 miles down wards. Taking separately any one of these chaplets (or atolls), we now know it to be the nearly level summit of a submarine table-mountain, rising abruptly from the un fathomable ocean, and approaching the surface within a distance which varies in different atolls from 20 to 45 fatlrums. The quasi-elliptical margin of the atoll is fringed, and the central expanse of its area is more or less sparsely studded, " with oval basins of coral-rock just lipping the surface of the sea, and each containing a lake of clear water " (Darwin). These small oval basins, or ring-shaped reefs and islets, are in fact essentially miniatures of the atoll itself. The general impression made by the Maldive atoll is vividly drawn by the French adventurer Pyrard de la Val (1602-7): " Each atollon is detached, and contains within it a great multi tude of small islands. It is a marvel to see one of these atollons, compassed all round by a great bank of stone, insomuch that no art of man could so well enclose with walls an equal space of ground Looking from the middle of an atollon you see all round you that great bank of stone encircling the isles and defend ing them against the violence of the sea. And it is a fearful thing even for the boldest to draw near this bank and see the waves come on and break furiously all round .... so that you see all round you as it were a whitened wall." Though the barrier reef, or bane de pierre, of which Pyrard speaks, exists in most of the atolls, there is none in the most northerly of the great atolls (Tiladummati and Milladummadu, two divisions of one atoll). In this there are broad and safe navigable channels, from 1 to 2 miles wide, between all the islands forming the chaplet. A vessel can enter the atoll by any one of these channels, and steer within it in any direction, anchoring anywhere on a sandy bottom in 20 to 25 fathoms. In the more southerly atolls entrance channels are only found at occa sional intervals, though in all they are pretty numerous. Thus in Suadiva, the most southerly of the large atolls (50 miles from north to south, 36 miles from east to west), which has a barrier reef on great part of its contour, there are forty-two channels by which a ship can enter the lagoon. It is observed that in the double part of the chain of atolls the openings are most numerous on those sides which are in juxtaposition. Thus on the three atolls of 1 The solitary island of Minucoy (Minakai), lying 70 miles north of the Maldives (med. lat. 8 16 30" N.; population 3000), pertains to these islands by the race and language of its people, but, as it has long lulonged to the raja of Cannanore, it is usually classed with the Luccadives. 2 Maid, atolu. The word atollon is already defined as a generic ex pression in Zeidler s Universal Lexicon, 1 732 ( " a name applied to such a place in the sea as exhibits a heap of little islands lying close together, and almost hanging on to each other"). Atolu is probably connected with the Singhalese prep, etula, "inside" (Bell). 3 See Proc. Roy. Soc. din., 1879-80, No. 107. 7 ) Mrnfkoi :0 Eight Degree Chan. -- i . , $ TULadummaii.
- .:V jol
litahuraiSu, ..- * V .. omnaAJiL . . , ALol ,;.V.*j : orsbujykAtol)-^ s> MALDIVE .^.C* r L ; :; t{.iS.MaleAtol
ISLANDS . Atol Jf.JVUandiiAtol ?" %- 7 A^.-, ^ f . * / MuLaku. Atol
EoliLmadulu.-Atol , .? ""wadjii Chan V. ^ " .: .SaJLcturranati - Atal "balf Degree .. Jfuyadu. Atol , .? & (Suvaj&ya,)
00* [Equator] 00 V S^-. O
Maldive Islands. Fig. 1, Admy. Chart; Fig. 2, Map of dr. 1555