er
dashing up against the reef on the windward side brings an abundance of
food, while the slight movement of the waves on the leeward side brings
but little food.

After many years the dead coral is broken off and piled up on the reef.
In this condition it is cemented by the lime in the sea-water, thereby
forming a nucleus for land. Then, perchance, a cocoanut drifts upon the
formation and, finding sufficient nutriment, sends down a root and
begins its growth. Other cocoanuts are drifted to the newly
disintegrated coral soil until the tropical vegetation becomes capable
of sustaining animal life. Or, perhaps, a portion of the ocean bed in
that particular region is uplifted by the volcanic forces, thus greatly
enlarging the land area. Attracted by the new land, people from near-by
islands emigrate and take possession of the unoccupied area. Thus the
upbuilding of islands and their occupancy goes on through the centuries.

From the fact that these formations exist at a depth of several thousand
feet, while coral polyps themselves can live only near the surface, it
is thought that either the sea bottom must have been sinking for a long
period of time or else that the cinder cones around which the reefs are
built must have shrunk away until their tops are below sea level. At all
events they seem to be due to volcanic movement.

[Illustration: A Malay girl]

Differences in environment produce marked differences on people in
various parts of the continental world. Likewise, differences in the
geological structure of the islands of the Pacific have produced a
marked influence on the inhabitants of the islands of the Pacific. Those
living on large and mountainous islands, where the productions are
varied and abundant, are greatly superior mentally and physically to
those inhabiting the small low-lying coral islands.

In the small islands, where there are few objects of interest and the
circle of life is necessarily circumscribed and food and building
material scanty, the inhabitants are dwarfed in intellect and their
languages limited in vocabulary. The inhabitants of the extensive
Paumoto group of islands give a striking example of the dreary monotony
of life on small coral islands. Indeed, coral atolls are lacking in
pretty nearly all the features that are necessary for a high degree of
civilization; nature, therefore, reacts, with the result that the human
life of this region is in a condition of savagery. Many of the