account, is one of the principal confidants of the king, to whom his wife is nearly allied. An Englishman, named" Holmes, who has resided for nearly thirty years on the island. of Woahoo, has also great influence; and the fort is commanded by another Englishman of the name of George Berkley.

Whatever political changes these islands may undergo, no part of the world seems to call more loudly for the introduction of the arts of civilized life, and, in connexion with them, for the great engines of moral improvement, education and the Bible. The importance of the station, the critical state of the islands, the ascendancy which the English have already obtained, the personal character of the monarch, and the slight hold which their superstition appears to have on the minds of the natives, all concur in strongly recommending the Sandwich Islands as the sphere of Missionary labour. A son of the King of Atooi, and some other Owyhean youths, are now under education in Connecticut. This is an important measure; but it will require to be followed up with a partial colonisation, both with teachers and artisans, in order to give permanence to any plans of melioration. Nothing else will save these Islands from falling a prey to intestine warfare, or to the tender mercies of unprincipled mercantile adventurers. England will have to protect Polynesia, as she has to protect Africa, from American buccaniers and European menstealers. The Russian American Company require in partilar to be watched; and in the navy of that gigantic and evergrowing empire, we shall probably, at no very distant period, have to encounter a dangerous rival. It will be a great thing not to deserve to be expelled from seas where the triumph of our navies might subserve the triumph of Christianity, where our language is already sufficiently understood, to be easily rendered the medium of evangelical instruction, and where what has already been achieved for Taheite, presents the strongest encouragement to persevere in the same line of beneficent moral conquest.

From the Island of Woahoo, Lieut. Kotzebue made for the tropical Islands of the Pacific; and on the 10th of January, 1817, he fell in with a low woody island, in lat. 10° 8', long. 189° 4' W. to which, concluding it to be a new discovery, he gave the name of New Year's Island. The natives, who appeared in their boats, were tall and well shaped, and differed considerably in their physiognomy from the inhabitants of the other South Sea islands, having a high forehead, an aquiline nose, and sparkling brown eyes. They were tattooed, but not in the face. Their long black air, well rubbed with cocoa oil, was tied above the VOL. XVIII. N.S.: D.

forehead, and adorned with shell ornaments; they wore also a collar of red shells, and in their immense ear-holes, which measured more than three inches in diameter,' they wore a roll of green leaves or of tortoise-shell. A few days after, the Rurick arrived at a chain of low wooded islands, inhabited by the same race, whom they found a kind-hearted people. On examination, the whole groupe proved to be of coral formation; and on some of them, the layer of mould was found not more than two inches deep, so recently have they risen above the deep. Lieut. K. thus describes his feelings on first landing at one of these modern islands.

The spot on which I stood filled me with astonishment, and I adored in silent admiration the omnipotence of God, who had given even to these minute animals the power to construct such a work. My thoughts were confounded when I considered the immense series of years that must elapse, before such an island can rise from the fathomless abyss of the ocean, and become visible on the surface. At a future period they will assume another shape; all the islands will join and form a circular slip of earth, with a pond or lake in the cir cle; and this form will again change, as these animals continue building till they reach the surface, and then the water will one day vanish, and only one great island be visible. It is a strange feeling to walk about on a living island, where all below is actively at work. And to, what corner of the earth can we penetrate, where human beings are not already to be found? In the remotest regions of the north, amidst mountains of ice, under the burning sun of the equator, nay, even in the middle of the ocean, on islands which have been formed by animals, they are met with !"

Yet, in spite of the thinness of the superficial layer of earth, trees were already growing, in several of the islands, between the large blocks of coral, which resembled, says the Russian Navigator, in height and thickness, our largest oaks.' The whole chain, which bears the name of Radack, consists of ten circular groupes of islands, extending over nearly six degrees of latitude. To the west of this chain, at the distance of about a degree, there exists, according to the testimony of the natives, a second chain, consisting of nine large groupes and three single islands, which they call Ralick. The groupe which Lieut. Kotzebue first discovered, and which forms part of the Radack chain, consists of sixty-five islands, and is about thirty miles in length from West to East, and about ten miles in breadth. It received the name of Count Romanzoff. Otdia, the most eastern and largest island of the Romanzoff groupe, lies in lat. 9°. N. long. 189°. W. Whether Lieut. Kotzebue can claim to be the first discoverer of the Radack chain, or not, depends on the determination of their identity with the Chatham and Calvert's Islands of the charts; but

Captain Krusenstern is disposed to think, that what Capt. Marshall saw were the islands of the Ralick chain. Kotzebue has at all events been the first to make us acquainted with their true situation and internal character; and the narrow inspection which he was enabled to take of them, has put us in possession of much more full and satisfactory information relative to their origin. Nothing in nature is more wonderful than the process by which these islands are continually rising into existence. The foundation on which the corals build, are shoals or table mountains, rising with perpendicular walls from the depths of the ocean, near which the lead finds no bottom. The surface of the table is below water only a broad dam or reef around the circumference of it, reaches the surface at low water. As far as this dam can be examined, it consists of horizontal layers of a limestone formed of coral sand or fragments of madrepores; a species of rock evidently of new formation, and which still continues to be produced. It is this same stone in which, on the coast of Guadaloupe, human skeletons have been found enclosed. Thus, says M. Chamisso, we cannot but ⚫ believe that

in those parts of the sea where the enormous masses of this formstion rise, even in the cold and unillumined bottom of the ocean, animals are continually employed in producing, by the process of their life, the materials for its indisputably continued growth and increase. And the ocean between the tropics seems to be a great chemical la boratory of nature, where she confides an important office in the tem of her economy, to these imperfectly organized animals that produce lime-stone.'

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A fine white sand of madrepore fragments covers the declivity of the dam, which is washed by the water. A few kinds of branching madrepores, or millepores, rise partially from this bottom, in which they have fixed themselves, with roots of a round form. Several others grow on the stone walls of larger clefts, the bottom of which is filled up with sand; among these also the Tubipora musica, which we saw in a living state, and the producers of which we recognised to be a polypus of the form of a star of eight rays. Species which cover the stone, or assume a lozenge form (Astrea) are always met with in the constantly-watered hollows of the bottom, next to the breakers. The red colour of the reef, under the breakers, is caused by a Nullipora, which covers the stone wherever the waves beat, and under favourable circumstances, assumes a stalactitical form. The colour and silky lustre, which disappear in the air, immediately des cided us to ascribe to this substance an animal nature, and the treat ment of the bleached skeleton, with diluted nitric acid, confirmed our opinion, which had been founded on analogy. The cursory view distinguishes, only by the colouring, and a certain velvet-like appear ance, the lythophytes, with fine pores in a living state, from their dead bleached skeletons. We found only the Millepora cœrulea, and

the Tubipora musica, and a yellowish, red-brown Distichopora, with coloured skeletons; but never saw the latter alive. The kinds with larger stars, or Lamella, have larger and more distinguishable polypuses. Thus an animal, resembling the Actinia, covers the endbranches of a species of Caryophillia, which we also found alive above low water-mark; the branches and roots seem to be bleached and dead. We often see in the lythophytes living branches, or parts existing with others that are dead; and the species, which otherwise assume a spherical form, spread out in places where sand is carried, into flat surfaces, with a raised edge, because the sand kills the upper part, and they can only live and grow on the circumference. The enormous masses of one growth, which are met with here and there on the islands, or on the reefs, as rolled pieces of rock, have been probably formed in the tranquil depths of the ocean. Above, under the influence of various agents, only masses of inferior size can be formed. A broad-limbed Corallina, in a living state, has a vegetable green colour, which it loses when dried.'

"

On these coral ridges form the sand-banks which the sea throws up, especially at the windward side and at the projecting angles of the circumference. These sand-banks become islands, having in their centre a basin or lagoon, communicating with the sea by narrow inlets. In some cases, where the ring is small, the lagoon is filled up, and a single island is produced; but in that case, the flat level in the centre is always lower than the outward wall of the island, and here pools of water are formed after a continued rain,-the only fresh water the inhabitants possess. No dew falls in these islands, nor do they check the course of the wind. The process of their formation is thus more particularly described in an Appendix.

'As soon as the outer edge of the reef has reached such a height, that it remains almost dry at low water, at the time of ebb, the corals leave off building higher; sea-shells, fragments of coral, sea-hedgehog shells, and their broken off prickles are united by the burning sun, through the medium of the cementing calcareous sand, which has arisen from the pulverisation of the above-mentioned shells, into one whole, or solid stone, which, strengthened by the continual throwing up of new materials, gradually increases in thickness, till it at last becomes so high, that it is covered only during some seasons of the year by the high tides. The heat of the sun so penetrates the mass of stone when it is dry, that it splits in many places, and breaks off in flakes. These flakes, so separated, are raised one upon another by the waves at the time of high water. The always active surf throws blocks of coral (frequently of a fathom in length, and three or four feet thick) and shells of marine animals between and upon the foundation stones; after this the calcareous sand lies undisturbed, and offers to the seeds of trees and plants cast upon it by the waves, a soil upon which they rapidly grow to overshadow its dazzling white surface. Entire trunks of trees, which are carried by the rivers from

other countries and islands, find here, at length, a resting place, after their long wanderings: with these, come some small animals, such as lizards and insects, as the first inhabitants. Even before the trees form a wood, the real sea-birds nestle here; strayed land-birds take refuge in the bushes; and at a much later period, when the work has been long since completed, man also appears, builds his hut on the fruitful soil formed by the corruption of the leaves of the trees, and calls himself lord and proprietor of this new creation.' Vol. III. pp. 332, 3.

The view of these coral groupes is described as presenting a tiresome uniformity. Looking from the outer sea, where the cocoa-tree is not seen above the rest of the wood, it would hardly be supposed that they had any inhabitants. The most useful plant is the common pandanus of the South-Sea Islands, which grows wild on the sterile sand where vegetation commences its fruit is the principal food of the inhabitants, the spicy juice obtained from it is their wine, and its leaves furnish them with aprons, mats, sails, and mattresses. The cocoatree, besides affording them drink and food, oil, and utensils, supplies them with the materials of their cordage. The sea brings them timber, and in the wrecks of ships, the iron which they so highly prize. The Radackers are described as slender in their make, well-built, and healthy. Their bones,' Lieut. K. informs us, are as delicate as those of women; their hands and feet uncommonly small.' They are darker than the people of Owhyhee, but are distinguished by greater clearness of skin. They are mild and timid, but cheerful and hospitable; and what is highly remarkable, the women uniformly conducted themselves with modesty and reserve. No woman of Radack,' says M. Chamisso, ever came on board our ship;' and both sexes are represented as free from the vices which disgrace the people of the more Eastern Polynesia. Yet, they have their wars, and in Prince Lamary all the Northern groupes had submitted to a conqueror. As to religion, they are stated to adore an invisible God, and to offer him a simple tribute of fruits, without temples and without priests; but we receive with some suspicion, the details of M. Chamisso on this subject. It is plain, that a species of polytheism prevails, together with a belief in conjuration and omens. Infanticide is the law of Radack: no mother is allowed to bring up more than three children; the fourth she is obliged to bury alive, and any more that she may have. Yet, with a singular mixture of refinement and barbarity, a staff fixed in the ground, with annular incisions, marks the grave of the children who were not allowed 'to live.' The bodies of the chiefs are buried on the isJands, under rude monumental heaps of stones: those of the