Although in the neighbourhood of the Maldiva Archipelago the winds, during
the monsoons, blow during nearly an equal time from opposite quarters, and
although, as I am informed by Captain Moresby, the westerly winds are the
strongest, yet the islets are almost all placed on the eastern side of the
northern atolls, and on the south-eastern side of the southern atolls.
That the formation of the islets is due to detritus thrown up from the
outside, as in the ordinary manner, and not from the interior of the
lagoons, may, I think be safely inferred from several considerations, which
it is hardly worth while to detail. As the easterly winds are not the
strongest, their action probably is aided by some prevailing swell or
current.

In groups of atolls, exposed to a trade-wind, the ship-channels into the
lagoons are almost invariably situated on the leeward or less exposed side
of the reef, and the reef itself is sometimes either wanting there, or is
submerged. A strictly analogous, but different fact, may be observed at
the Maldiva atolls--namely, that where two atolls stand in front of each
other, the breaches in the reef are the most numerous on their near, and
therefore less exposed, sides. Thus on the near sides of Ari and the two
Nillandoo atolls, which face S. Male, Phaleedoo, and Moloque atolls, there
are seventy-three deep-water channels, and only twenty-five on their outer
sides; on the near side of the three latter named atolls there are fifty-
six openings, and only thirty-seven on their outsides. It is scarcely
possible to attribute this difference to any other cause than the somewhat
different action of the sea on the two sides, which would ensue from the
protection afforded by the two rows of atolls to each other. I may here
remark that in most cases, the conditions favourable to the greater
accumulation of fragments on the reef and to its more perfect continuity on
one side of the atoll than on the other, have concurred, but this has not