artificially constructed to protect the margin of Keeling Island, is of
frequent occurrence round atolls, I know not; but we shall presently meet
with it, under precisely the same form, on the outer edge of the
"barrier-reefs" which encircle the Society Islands.

There appears to be scarcely a feature in the structure of Keeling reef,
which is not of common, if not of universal occurrence, in other atolls.
Thus Chamisso describes (Kotzebue's "First Voyage," volume iii., page 144.)
a layer of coarse conglomerate, outside the islets round the Marshall
atolls which "appears on its upper surface uneven and eaten away." From
drawings, with appended remarks, of Diego Garcia in the Chagos group and of
several of the Maldiva atolls, shown me by Captain Moresby (see also
Moresby on the Northern atolls of the Maldivas, "Geographical Journal",
volume v., page 400.), it is evident that their outer coasts are subject to
the same round of decay and renovation as those of Keeling atoll. From the
description of the atolls in the Low Archipelago, given in Captain
Beechey's "Voyage," it is not apparent that any conglomerate coral-rock was
there observed.

The lagoon in Keeling atoll is shallow; in the atolls of the Low
Archipelago the depth varies from 20 to 38 fathoms, and in the Marshall
Group, according to Chamisso, from 30 to 35; in the Caroline atolls it is
only a little less. Within the Maldiva atolls there are large spaces with
45 fathoms, and some soundings are laid down of 49 fathoms. The greater
part of the bottom in most lagoons, is formed of sediment; large spaces
have exactly the same depth, or the depth varies so insensibly, that it is
evident that no other means, excepting aqueous deposition, could have
leveled the surface so equally. In the Maldiva atolls this is very
conspicuous, and likewise in some of the Caroline and Marshall Islands. In
the former large spaces consist of sand and SOFT CLAY; and Kotzebue speaks